On 6 May 98 at 19:36, Tony Duell wrote: I'll second both of these motions ! Unfortunately , all too often manufacturers (and software houses) are in it for the quick buck, and abandon the product as soon as there is no longer (in their opinion) adequate return. But they will sit on their copyrights and prevent any use or improvement of the product. Many never even back up their product with parts, docs etc.in the first place. I seem to remember that auto-manufacturers had to supply parts for a certain number of years after production. This should be built in to copyright protection, which could make copyright documentation available after Xn period of time if products (or ideas for that matter) were not supported or available . The infamous Atari ST Freeze-Dried Terminal program incident comes to mind here as well as those of Broderbund, Symantec ,et al, sell-offs to other companies and disclaiming any further responsabilities. IBM has been one of the best for support (if somewhat pricey) and now has discontinued support for PS2 and PS1 computers.Then in this case they should also have to give up rights to MCA so that 3rd party developers could continue development. This way consumers would also have some protection and these companies would not be so quick to abandon them. It would also provide more of a barier against shoddy manufacturing practices . Rant mode off. ciao larry lwalker(a)interlog.com