[Coco] Re: Peeks, Pokes, Execs on-line

[farna at att.net]

Morally it's wrong. Someone owns a copyright to it. Legally it's wrong for the same reason, but someone has to file a complaint. Since the amount of damages is so miniscule, the only thing they are likely to do is issue a "cease and desist" order, that's if they actually do consult a lawyer. Since there is no money in it for him, that's what most lawyers recommend. Only if you continue after that is there much value in suing, and then it's a fine imposed by the court and usually the defending lawyers fees, sometimes out of the fine, sometimes in addition. But they DO have to show that you were contacted and/or they attempted to rectify the situation out of court. Very few people are willing to put up $5K or so in lawyer fees on principle. 

Practically, no one really cares about it any more, and there is really no profit to be made. Even if it were available through legal channels it would likely be to expensive to buy because there are so few potential buyers. Definitely wouldn't be worth while. That's why I gave all rights to everything I had to the people who would see it distributed -- Glenside CoCo Club. I also put it all in PD after they okayed it. THAT is what should be done to "orphanware" after a 5-10 year period. Retaining rights on software after 10 years is really stupid, as most outlives it's usefulness in 2-3 years. Now if a company is still publishing a version of it, especially with some small amount of code left from the original, that's a lot different. 


--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AIM.html
(free download available!)

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
>   Message: 6
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 22:30:46 -0700
From: "Neil Morrison" <neilsmorr at hotpop.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] Coco Digest, Vol 25, Issue 18
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Message-ID: <066a01c5cc94$ae075770$dbe679d1 at NewBaby>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=response


Do it. If someone complains first see if they have any right to, then stop.

Regards,

Neil Morrison

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Cappellini" <tony at tcapp.com>

> Well, everything that Radio Shack, Microware, and probably 90% of every 
> other coco vendor, made for the coco is online, so I dont see why this 
> would be a problem.
> If I'm wrong, someone please chime in.


>>From: Alex Kritikos <alex.kritikos at gmail.com>

>>I have a copy of 500 Peeks, Pokes and Execs, and the supplement, 200 more
>>Peeks etc. I'm guessing it's probably not legal to put PDFs online. If it
>>is, though, I'd love to help out the community.
>>What do you think?