20 Dec
2004
20 Dec
'04
10:08 a.m.
What do you folks make of this site?
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
That have a bunch of software for download. Some of it is Abandonware.
Or at least it's claimed to be Abandonware. How do we know it's
Abandonware? They have nothing on their site (that I could find) that
confirms that these are abandonware, and there are thousands of titles
there.
They want money if you want to download anything. I can understand them
wanting to cover their costs, but this seems pretty sleazy to me.
Opinions?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
20 Dec
20 Dec
10:28 a.m.
What do you folks make of this site?
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
That have a bunch of software for download. Some of it is Abandonware.
Or at least it's claimed to be Abandonware. How do we know it's
Abandonware? They have nothing on their site (that I could find) that
confirms that these are abandonware, and there are thousands of titles
there.
They want money if you want to download anything. I can understand them
wanting to cover their costs, but this seems pretty sleazy to me.
Opinions?
Looks mighty questionable to me too. I bet if someone did some research,
it would show that some number of these things are still owned by someone
else and are not abandonware.
Ashley
10:56 a.m.
I bet if someone did some research,
it would show that some number of these things are still owned by someone
else and are not abandonware
Everything is still owned by someone, unless it has been explicitly
placed into the public domain by its last owner. AFAIK, the concept of
"abandonware" doesn't have any legal basis whatsoever.
It may well be the case that the ownership of old software can't be
determined, because the records were lost as ownership changed hands
many times between then and now. The current owners may not even know
that they own it.
This is a fundamental problem with US copyright law. With tangible
property, when a dispute arises the property owner has to prove
ownership (via a title document). With copyrights, if Joe claims
that Bob does not own a work, it is up to Joe to prove that claim,
and the legal presumption is that Bob *does* own it. For "abandonware",
anyone could come forward and claim to own it, and it would be
difficult or impossible for such claims to be disproven. (Perhaps
someone may see this as an opportunity?)
11:12 a.m.
Everything is still owned by someone, unless it has
been explicitly
placed into the public domain by its last owner.
(Or unless sufficient time has passed - last I looked, it was something
like fifty years after the author's death. Obviously that is not
relevant to "abandonware", most/all of which is not yet 50 years old.)
AFAIK, the concept of "abandonware"
doesn't have any legal basis
whatsoever. [under US copyright law]
When a company dissolves, what happens to its property? Is that
something that must be specified as part of the dissolution process?
This is a fundamental problem with US copyright law.
Well, there are more fundamental problems, I believe, but this is not
really the place to discuss them.
With tangible property, when a dispute arises the
property owner has
to prove ownership (via a title document).
I daresay most physical property does not have title documents. If you
buy a pair of gloves, what is the "title document"? (The sales slip?
How is it tied to your particular pair of gloves?)
I suspect that your statement really applies only to things ownership
of which is registered with governments, such as land or motor
vehicles, not relatively minor property such as loaves of bread and
screwdrivers.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
11:29 a.m.
>>>> "der" == der Mouse
<mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> writes:
> AFAIK, the concept of "abandonware"
doesn't have any legal basis
> whatsoever. [under US copyright law]
der> When a company dissolves, what happens to its property? Is that
der> something that must be specified as part of the dissolution
der> process?
Yes. It might be transferred to a creditor, or to some person who
wins the auction for it. For example, the IP for an invention I
created for a previous (now defunct) company is currently owned by one
of the "angels" who originally put up the money for that company.
paul
11:30 a.m.
When a company dissolves, what happens to its
property? Is that
something that must be specified as part of the dissolution process?
Most companies never really completely dissolve. Their assets, even if
just a name and a stapler, are owned by someone.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
11:38 a.m.
I wrote:
Everything is still owned by someone, unless it has
been explicitly
placed into the public domain by its last owner.
der Mouse wrote:
(Or unless sufficient time has passed - last I looked,
it was something
like fifty years after the author's death. Obviously that is not
relevant to "abandonware", most/all of which is not yet 50 years old.)
In the US, it's currently 95 years after publication or 70 years after
the death of the author. However, the US Congress on average each year
increases the term of copyright by more than one year. In the Eldred
case, the plaintiff attempted to get the latest copyright term
extension overturned on the basis that the powers of Congress section
of the US Constitution only provides for "securing for limited Times to
Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings
and Discoveries"; if Congress keeps increasing the term (including
granting the extension to preexisting works), the duration is effectively
unlimited. The Supreme Court rejected this reasoning. :-(
When a company dissolves, what happens to its
property? Is that
something that must be specified as part of the dissolution process?
Yes. It always winds up being owned by someone. However, the new
owner may not even *know* about all the things that they own. It's
easy to imagine software (especially older software) going without
notice.
11:25 a.m.
Ashley Carder wrote:
Looks mighty questionable to me too. I bet if someone
did some research,
it would show that some number of these things are still owned by someone
else and are not abandonware.
A 5 second examination of that site, shows products and IP with clear
ownership rights. If you go to PC RPG you will find a range of Origin
RPGs (Ultima etc) now owned by a small entertainment company called
Electronic Arts.
Deano
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.0 - Release Date: 17/12/2004
10:34 a.m.
What do you folks make of this site?
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
They want money if you want to download anything. I can understand them
wanting to cover their costs, but this seems pretty sleazy to me.
I think this also hurts the attempts by people to make unsupported software
freely distributable, as it demonstrates there may be money to be made (thus
a better motive to lock such things up on the part of the original owner).
It also paints other unrelated (and presumably somewhat more honourable, even
in the context of warez) warez sites with a similar sleazebrush by sheer
perceived association.
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- High explosives are applicable where truth and logic fail. -----------------
11:37 a.m.
Opinions?
Looks like an attempt to draw skeptical attention away
from CommodoreOne(?) right now. Seems to me if this
project has gone so mainstream (NYTimes,QVC), that
there would have been a Lawyer's checkout of propriety
by now.
Otherwise we might stop seeing Jeri all of a sudden.
There is also the mystery of why the Dutch case design
matches the USA/China one.
I'm thinking of the ROM software writers mainly, but
the hardware listmembers would know more about how
the logic would divide up as to attribution.
Even if it isn't legally perfect it might still make it.
A worker next to my office at GE from Taiwan
produced back overseas a rip-off of the "Lectron"
system called "Blok-Tronic". Don't believe he had any
agreements from Raytheon to make it. It was actually
sold in the Smithsonian, the USA National museum.
John A.
22 Dec
22 Dec
3:02 a.m.
John Allain wrote:
My guess is that they're probably just re-selling the one Jeri made for
Mammoth...
--
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
Opinions?
Looks like an attempt to draw skeptical attention away
from CommodoreOne(?) right now. Seems to me if this
project has gone so mainstream (NYTimes,QVC), that
there would have been a Lawyer's checkout of propriety
by now.
Otherwise we might stop seeing Jeri all of a sudden.
There is also the mystery of why the Dutch case design
matches the USA/China one...
20 Dec
20 Dec
4:24 p.m.
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
What do you folks make of this site?
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
I've since come to find that this site is hosted in the Czech republic,
which may explain the more free-wheeling aspect of it.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
11:57 p.m.
A quicky glance, at the PC side of things, it appears they've spidered a
better known free (ethical) abandonware site. I suspect they've
probably done similarly w/ the non-PC side of things.
And by "ethical", I mean if the PC site I'm thinking of knows someone
sells it, or the IP owner sends a email / C&D they won't distribute
it.
(Further abandoware copyright ownership/ethical debates will be
dutifully ignored.)
David
On Mon, 2004-12-20 at 19:24 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
What do you folks make of this site?
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/
I've since come to find that this site is hosted in the Czech republic,
which may explain the more free-wheeling aspect of it.
7129
days inactive
7131
days old
12 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
allain＠panix.com -
aw288＠osfn.org -
deano＠rattie.demon.co.uk -
dholland＠woh.rr.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pkoning＠equallogic.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
vcf＠siconic.com -
wacarder＠usit.net -
woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net