#Copyright
2 messages in this thread
The copyright on software is an especially sticky problem, I think – in
fact, copyrights on almost anything relating to computers.
Case: The older Commodore computers (PET, 8032, 8096, B128/B256, etc.)
were fine machines for their day. A great deal of very good software was
written for them, and many of us still have it. People are buying those
old machines at flea markets, etc., and are coming to our club asking about
software.
NOW – do we hand them copies of the excellent word processors, data base
programs, and spreadsheets that we have? They are still under copyright.
Tell them to go and buy them? Joke. The companies that sold those
products are all out of business!
Books explaining those machines were prolific. Tell folks to go and buy
them? They're out of print, and unavailable anywhere except at the same
kind of flea markets, etc.
BUT – should people have to do without those programs and books that ARE
available, because the companies, programmers, publishers, et al, are not
any longer supporting those machines?
So far, I have not given away any of these things – but it is a very sore
temptation!
Betty, you're absolutely right. In copyright terms, this would be the same
sort of situation as "death of the copyright holder" — i.e. the
companies, machines, publishers are all "dead." As things move so much more
quickly in electronic space, the present copyright rule of "death+50 years"
seems onerous. What happens in (for example) trademark law, when a company
goes out of business? Is their trademark still protected…and for how
long? Anyone know? Software is just NOT the same KIND of business as book
publishing or the art world. It bears some things in common with the music
business, and a little with motion picture distribution — but is
fundamentally unlike either one. I still think we need a new category of
law…