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| Vintage Macintosh Software |
Posted by: tjsummers51l on 2012-06-07 15:26:37
I have just created an FTP site with all my old mac software. There shouldn't be an issue with copyright infringement as the software is over 25 years old.
< snip >
TJ
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Posted by: Anonymous Freak on 2012-06-07 15:40:30
Unfortunately, it is copyright infringement unless it was freely-distributable when released, or you have the copyright-holder's permission. Some old Mac software is still purchasable-new today.
(Copyright in the US lasts an insanely long time, even if it isn't registered with the Copyright office.)
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Posted by: Mithrandir on 2012-06-07 20:50:44
Its only a matter of time before one of those guys comes around here with their usual "snip". The site is a great idea, if only it wasn't under copyright.
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Posted by: Anonymous Freak on 2012-06-07 22:10:53
Yeah, do some hunting, there are websites out there for this type of thing. The 68kmla tries to stay on "the straight and narrow". *PERSONALLY* I have no problem with the concept of "abandonware", but I do understand moderators' wishes to keep even the remotest resemblance of illegality off.
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Posted by: tt on 2012-06-07 22:26:46
Preserving abandonware is commendable and doing it not in a vacuum is even more so. I wish the retromac hotline server was still going.
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Posted by: tjsummers51l on 2012-06-08 10:50:59
Thank you for the posts and information. To the moderator's of this site. I apologize. I was only trying to be helpful to anyone with an old all in one mac. I was not aware that it could still be under copywrite. Thanks again.
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Posted by: Trash80toHP_Mini on 2012-06-08 11:07:57
addenda: Thank you, but there's no need for apology, you weren't aware of the situation here at the 68kMLA or the ludicrous extension to the length of copyright protections that have been legislated over the years. Neither was I for that matter, I've posted some content in the scan dumps that I need to re-think in light of the information that netfreak posted below. I was made aware of this by another mod when the issue came up in another thread. Thanks for the help netfreak.
Here is a fabulous bit of news, unfortunately, it might not apply to content that I have unwittingly posted:
French Court: Google Not Liable for Copyrighted Materials on YouTube
Thomas Jefferson, father of the bill of rights, considered copyright to be a necessary evil in a free society. As I understand it from the reading I've done, it was intended to be for a length of time sufficient to protect an author's right to secure income for works published. I'm sure he's rolling over in his grave at the state of copyright protection law today, extending the protection beyond the lifetime of the author. IMHO, of course.
The First U.S. Copyright Law
Search string for those interested, I find the subject fascinating:
"Thomas Jefferson" "copyright protection" length
Be that as it may: we are not Google, who could afford to front legal fees until awarded court costs in the case cited above, and we cannot even afford to lean upon the limits of "fair use," much less push them.
Its only a matter of time before one of those guys comes around here with their usual "snip". The site is a great idea, if only it wasn't under copyright. < snipped >
Indeed, even mods who might personally approve of the abandonware concept cannot voice approval of it here at the barracks. This place needs to toe the line legally, so as to preserve the institutional knowledge base we've built up over the past eleven years or so. Google just about anything pre-G5 and what organization's topics show up on the first page of hits? [😉] ]'>
It's wonderful to see comrades doing some "self policing" here in the threads, thanks.
jt
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Posted by: netfreak on 2012-06-09 07:14:18
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html
See above. It lasts a LONG time. Depending on how you distribute, you may never encounter a complaint from the original author. It will always be a possibility though.
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Posted by: olePigeon on 2012-06-10 22:40:39
Software is different, and there was an exception in 2006 signed into the DMCA by the Library of Congress specifically for "abandonware."
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. It is still illegal to distribute copyrighted software, even old software, but it is not illegal to make accessible an archive of preserved software; provided it meets the above requirements. Pretty much anything that was released on a CD does not qualify. CDs are both still manufactured and reasonably available in the commercial market.
As of 2010, however, Sonly officially retired the floppy disk and stopped all manufacturing. So basically any software sold on a 3.5 and 5.25 floppy disk (and only on a floppy disk) would be OK to archive. Everything else is vorboten. There may be some gray area between archiving the floppy disk version of software, but not the CD version.
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Posted by: theos911 on 2012-06-17 04:10:20
Either way, that is definitely a step in right direction for the strength of the "abandonware" idea.
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