[Coco] Duplicating Copy-Protected Games (Z-89) (Was: Coco Digest, Vol 55, Issue 22)

[Steve Bjork]

You are right about the my games not being released to public 
domain.  But there is more to clarify on the subject.

First of all, I continue to sell and especially support all of my games.
As for making any money, what funds raised by a few games sales 
offset the cost in supporting them. (Mostly mailing cost.)

On the subject of copyright, your must remember that the right of 
that can be done with the software is the RIGHT of the copyright 
owner. (And no one else.)  While you buy software, you are giving 
limited rights to its use.  And that is all.

More importantly, some people think the 2003 update to the The 
Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) gives people the 
right to copy and give away older software.

This is not the case.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 made it illegal to 
circumvent any copy protection.  Just to act of trying to break it is illegal.
Now, the 2003 update to the DMCA does allow the circumvention Digital 
Right Management (DRM), aka copy protection but only in the cases of 
unsupported software and hardware.

The update to the DMCA also says that you have the right to transfer 
the software from hardware that is no longer working to a new 
hardware, if replacement
can not be found. In this case, you do have the right to circumvent 
the DRM to make it work on a new type computer that software was not 
design for.  Does this apply to Color Computer software? The answer 
is no. (Because replacement CoCos are "reasonably available" on E-BAY 
and other sources.)

The point to all this?  Just because a program is no longer sold 
and/or supported it does not remove the copyright or put it into public domain.

Now, I know some of you thinking I should just put my old games into 
public domain.  Well I can't for many reasons.

For 35 years I've been a software engineer and create a large body of 
copyrighted work.  Over those years, I've been involved in a number 
legal action in regards to the protection of my rights to my 
copyrighted software.  The fact that I maintained control over all my 
copyright code made for easy wins in court and saving me tens of $1,000's!

One other reason for not releasing my CoCo software in to public 
domain is that I have plans for those games.  As you know, there are 
a number of ideas that I have for projects to help the CoCo community 
and those game titles maybe be needed to help bring them to life.

I do have a request. If you have any of my software on your website, 
please remove it.  You would be helping not only me but the CoCo 
community as well.

Thank you,
Steve (Zaxxon) Bjork

At 05:44 PM 1/12/2008, you wrote:

>Carl J. England <mrspock12 at juno.com) wrote:
>>i didn't realize that the game [Z-89] was available as a download.
>>
>>has it been released to public domain?
>>
>>if so, i have no problem with sending you the files needed to create
>>copies of the program.
>
>As far as I know none of Steve's games, including Z-89, have been
>released to the public domain.  Certainly I have seen no indication of
>this on Curtis Boyle's CoCo games site.  To be honest, I'm not sure
>what Steve's position is regarding his old CoCo games.  He obviously
>makes no income off them anymore (i.e. you can't buy copies), so does
>he take issue with people making unauthorized copies for personal
>purposes, as long as no money is involved?
>
>I bought a copy of Backup Magic a few months ago from Carl.  It seems
>to have successfully copied some of my original, copy-protected
>diskettes (e.g. Sinistaar), but fails to make bootable copies of other
>(e.g. Time Bandit, Sailor Man).  So I guess there's still a place for
>The Defeater.
>
>JP
>
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