since we're on the subject of legality...

I have a program called "the Toy Shop" by Broderbund Software. It came out in 1986 for the Apple, Commodore, IBM PC and Macintosh - although I only have the IBM set of disks. It allowed you to print out patterns that you pasted onto card stock that you could then cut out to assemble 20 different models. There is an accompanying spiral-bound book that gives detailed instructions for assembling the models.

Here's where the question of legality comes in. I love this program. I want to be able to share it with all of you. I know Broderbund is still in business, but there is no way this program has been supported in twenty years! If I were to create image files of the disks (which I have already done for my own backup purposes) and released them online, would there be a problem, legally? I know I could email Broderbund and ask permission, but I've always been a fan of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to legal gray areas...

Just curious as to your position on this... Thanks.

Since the internet is an orgasim of piracy, does anyones opinion really matter?

I can remember downloading a version of photoshop at least a month before the program was even available for sale in this country, the internet moves faster than their ability to bring it to market...

I doubt that Broderbund has a commercial interest in the software anymore. But ...

If you know the correct thing to do and you don't do it, that is a personal decision. I would contact them first, possibly by real mail (not email) and try to find the name of an executive who might be sympathetic before you do. They are out there .. notice that you can download a lot of the old Borland languages now.

If you do decide to distribute it, we don't condone it and we're not involved. You've got to do that on your own elsewhere. Not even a 'wink wink' kind of thing.


Mike

gerrydoire said:

Since the internet is an orgasim of piracy, does anyones opinion really matter?

I can remember downloading a version of photoshop at least a month before the program was even available for sale in this country, the internet moves faster than their ability to bring it to market...

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The Internet is a communications network.

The piracy, spam, identity theft, flame wars, etc. are reflections of the people using the network, not a statement on the network itself.

I personally wouldn't brag about your exploits just in case anybody wants to read about them in a few years.

Piracy predates the internet, you could call up a BBS and get DOOM 2 a full two months before it was in stores.

piracy

piracy

gerrydoire said...internet is an orgasim of piracy[/p]

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Piracy has nothing to do with the internet. It's been around since someone figured how out how to rip of someone else's intellectual output.

That said, it's certainly a huge gray sea.
Is Broderbund going to public domain/freeware it ? Probably not. Lawyers and coorporate-types seem to have something against it.
They'd have to formulate a new license, that takes time, costs money, etc...
Not every company is as cool as Borland who basically put TC out there for free use.
But, you still have this old program that you want to use, and share. What to do...
It's sort of like "smokin' in the boy's room", in a sense. We all know better, but a lot of us do it. We've developed a lot of self-justifications, it's so old, they don't sell it so how can you buy it anyway, Micro$oft sucks, and so on until you get to a mental point where it's okay. Fundamentally, I don't think we're very honest as a species.

MP3's & DVD's are floating around all over the place, and the intellectual author of the media gets diddly-squat. But it's okay, 'cause i got this ripped dvd from my buddy on the other side of town, and he's my bud, you know.
Used bookstores sell books, but does the author get any royalties from the sale ? No.
Patents expire after, what, 17 years, and then the idea is free-for-all.
I'm too tired to write the mid-term, so I'll just pull something of the web, and dress it up a biit.

So where do you draw the line ?

patscc

P.S. Before anyone picks on me for being righteous, I'm certainly smack-dab in the gray area. I'm even wearing gray sweats, a gray sweater, and a gray wool-knit hat since it's so bloody cold out there.

patscc said:

... it's so old, they don't sell it so how can you buy it anyway...

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I will certainly respect the admins here and not list it here if I do decide to release it back into the wild, but that is my point exactly. It's the same mentality that all major businesses use - we don't want it, and we don't want to have anything to do with it, but you're not going to have it either.

I know my opinion is about as worthless as the next guys, but I think that, once a company decides that they no longer wish to support, sell or otherwise be involved in a software title, then it should become public domain. I've never understood why, when a piece of software (or a song or a movie or whatever) is no longer being sold, it remains illegal to give it away for free. No one is losing money since no one is selling it. And by allowing the piece in question to be given away, it keeps it from fading into obscurity.

Again,just my 2¢ opinionated rant...

rebeltaz said:

I know my opinion is about as worthless as the next guys, but I think that, once a company decides that they no longer wish to support, sell or otherwise be involved in a software title, then it should become public domain. I've never understood why, when a piece of software (or a song or a movie or whatever) is no longer being sold, it remains illegal to give it away for free. No one is losing money since no one is selling it. And by allowing the piece in question to be given away, it keeps it from fading into obscurity.

Again,just my 2¢ opinionated rant...

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I agree. The whole purpose of copyright laws was to ensure that the creator of something would see a profit from his work. But if a work is no longer making a profit, doesn't the copyright on it become kind of pointless? IMO, the reason things are the way they are has a lot to do with lawyers. You don't even want to know what kind of people go into law school these days.

Myself, I think that software copyrights should be set at 25-30 years. 50-75 years is ok for music, movies, books, and TV shows, but the nature of software is different.

Regardless, I like to have originals of old games whenever I can find them, as I'm sure everyone does.

As you all know, we just had this long thread about Microsoft Adventure. Try looking for an original of that. If you searched Ebay all year, you might find one, but you'd never outbid the sharks (and the game still won't work on certain smart-allecky floppy drives ). Just this week, there's been a vicious fight going on for a copy of DOS 1.10.

FYI, neither World of Spectrum nor Lemon64 has yet approached Broderbund asking about rights for redistribution. In the case of WOS, all Broderbund games were published on license by other companies so they'd only own the intellectual rights to the game, not the game itself.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/permits/publishers.html
http://www.lemon64.com/games/permissions.php

In many cases, it may be more fruitful to locate the developers (company) than the publisher. Depending on how their contract looked like, rights may lay somewhere inbetween the two. Also if you get the developers' grant for redistribution, it may be easier to convince the publisher it is a good thing to do.

IP holders never want to release anything into the wild for free since someday down the road they might want to release it on another platform and don't want the old stuff floating around for free.

Giving IP away makes it worthless to own that IP. Just the act of inquiring about something being released just reinforces the idea that somebody does want it, so lets make them pay where there are enough people interested.

Another issue is some software has other peoples work in it, so the company that released it cannot give it away without paying another company.

I'm fortunate in having the attention span of a gnat. Whenever I look at a program without paying for it, I lose interest in it quickly enough to claim a 'fair use for education' (my own) exception. That's my justification and I'm sticking to it.

--T

Fallo said:

As you all know, we just had this long thread about Microsoft Adventure. Try looking for an original of that. If you searched Ebay all year, you might find one, but you'd never outbid the sharks (and the game still won't work on certain smart-allecky floppy drives ).

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Heh heh heh, It's funny beacause it's true

Unknown K: I think you are a bit cynic here. If you check the two links I posted, the amount of both developers and software houses who have given the rights for one particular site to redistribute their old software is not neglectable. Some of them rather post freeware on their own web site, like Rockstar Games has offered a free download of Grand Theft Auto 1 and some more games since a couple of years ago. Appareantly it hasn't watered out the GTA series, they still retain the rights to the brand (if it is a brand) and make new games all the time.

But yes, I know certain companies feel the way you express, e.g. Nintendo would never upload an emulator version of Super Mario Bros since it is something they sell on Virtual Console (Wii) and I believe some of the competitor's download services too. Codemasters deny WOS the rights to distribute old Dizzy games because they may make new ones for mobile phones etc, and they feel it is hard to explain why one game is free to download while another one - despite being 20 years newer - isn't.

Besides, redistributing old Broderbund or other software is not the same thing as giving up intellectual properties or copyrights. All those games still lie under copyright in the sense nobody is allowed to modify and resell, or steal graphics, code etc from them to make own games. Actually you're not even allowed to download a TAP, record it on a fresh cassette and sell it on eBay. That would be piracy even if the game or program itself could be obtained. It may be a grey zone if you download a program to floppy disk and give it away to a friend who lacks an Internet connection or means to create floppy disks.

rebeltaz said:

I will certainly respect the admins here and not list it here if I do decide to release it back into the wild, but that is my point exactly. It's the same mentality that all major businesses use - we don't want it, and we don't want to have anything to do with it, but you're not going to have it either.

...

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I am not quite sure how to read the paragraph above but I just want to make sure that everybody understands our position here.

Nobody is against saving abandonware or sharing the fun of vintage computing. We encourage people to archive and preserve this history. But our mission here is quite a bit different than it is in other forums. We have decided that to keep this professional and on the up-and-up that we do not want to serve as a clearing house for abandonware or links to it. It is hard to be treated as a credible/respectable resource if members are are willfully violating laws in public where it is being archived for everybody else to see.

(That is not a comment on whether the laws make sense .. copyright law leaves much to be desired. But that is a different issue.)

Some members have caused us grief recently because even after explaining this position multiple times, they reacted badly and decided that we were just here to suppress them and obliterate the hobby. I don't think anything can be further from the truth.

Where it makes sense consider contacting the copyright holder. They are not all big businesses out to rule the world - some enlightened examples have been pointed out in this thread. And in private, share and enjoy your collection with like minded people. I think there are subtle ways to get the word out that you have something that other people might want to see without advertising too blatantly. (The first post in this thread is actually a good example.)

So in general, and this isn't a legal statement and laws vary depending on state and which country you're in but piracy laws in general are concerned with monetary gain or monetary damages. The other clause is X copies distributed to help make that argument.

If you sell the product the company that owns the software despite it's age would probably be a little pissy and want the money.

Giving it away, while you aren't authorized to (unless the EULA or other documents included in the original release imply that you can) doesn't cause monetary damage when that company no longer sells the product. In this case you usually receive a cease and desist letter to remove the copyrighted material from your site, if you comply *USUALLY* no additional actions are taken.

Of course, if you have some site with all the latest games and applications currently for sale, then yeah you're more likely to get a knock on the door than a cease and desist.

Then the replies here are just saying this isn't the place for it and to respect the owners of the site and not be posting questionable content here.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify (atleast in the US) the general flow of how it goes if you did post something without permission.

I believe some publishers fear juridical difficulties to prove why program A, © 1983 would be free to copy around but program B, © 2007 is not. Both still are under copyright, and in a court case regarding piracy of B the defender could make a claim that "A" is free, why not "B". In particular if traces of A still can be found within B. Therefore it is easier to deny distribution of A, and all bases are covered. Possibly even there is a higher instance of a member organization which sets regulations that the companies have to obey?

Anders is right. Who's to determine "abandonware"? And if you contacted the copyright holder, is there a chance he'd still sell you a copy or authorize you to make a copy (thereby removing the "there's no profit to be made" argument)?

Running down copyright owners, particularly after a bankruptcy or liquidation can be pretty daunting. Witness the guy who bought the copyright to all of the old Heathkit manuals. He can certainly realize a profit on sales, long after Heath could not.

Best thing is to wait until 2076 when the copyright expires.

In music publishing, this problem crops up all of the time. A publisher declares a work to be "permanently out of print" (POP) and refuses to authorize copies. You have no choice but to find something else to play.

mbbrutman said:

The Internet is a communications network.

The piracy, spam, identity theft, flame wars, etc. are reflections of the people using the network, not a statement on the network itself.

I personally wouldn't brag about your exploits just in case anybody wants to read about them in a few years.

Click to expand...

My copy of Windows Vista 64 Bit is paid for :+>

I think the bottom line here is, personally, you can do whatever you want and take whatever consequences may be forthcoming.

Just don't do it here. Theoretically, the forum could be cited for "aiding and abetting" the circumvention of copyright laws (copyright is copyright regardless if the item is being actively distributed or not) even if they are not gaining from it at all.

Although, I imagine, the majority of us, in some way or another, have infringed upon copyright laws, putting the forum and Erik in risk of liability isn't worth it. There are, undoubtedly, sites out there that do that sort of thing on an ongoing basis.

I think John (barythrin) makes an excellent point too. Often, modern programs will still contain remnants of code from >20 years ago, so distributing the older program is equal to disclosing secrets contained in the current program. What could be simpler? Of course the owner(s) would like to continue protecting those secrets.

--T