>> > Yep.  I've got a program that cannot be registered.  However,
>> > it does have some features in the registered version that I'd
>> > like to use.

>>  BS> Because the author is gone for good?

>>  BS> You can't get in contact with him?

>> I've been trying for years.  It appears he dropped off the
>> face of the earth...

 BS> Okay, that's kinda sad. :( Most programmers would just be
 BS> happy that somebody is using their software, but if it
 BS> isn't contactable it's a pretty big problem :(

 This, IMO, is one of the great failings of the new copyright
 law. I don't recall if it was 17 or 25 years before, now it's
 something like the life of the author plus 50 years. I have
 several excellent books, which are over 25 years old. They have
 not been republished since then. The author is dead. The
 publisher is, I beleive, out of business. I have no idea who to
 contact to get permission to do anything, nor do I have the
 economic reason to spend that much money to track someone down.
 For that matter, if the rights to those books were not specified
 in his will, I might have to track down every one of his heirs.
 If he had children who died, that might go down to his
 grandchildren.

 IOW, what I consider a work worth preserving is likely to
 disappear, because no one can do anything with it. No one
 interested in doing something with it. I would scan it and put
 it out through Project Gutenberg or some such. Now I won't.

 Preserving an author's rights should have it's limits. Producing
 a good work when you are young should not be a way for your
 grand children to live when you are long gone. Not at the cost
 of losing so much more. Everything created by any of us must
 eventually find it's way into the common store from which new
 works are created.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... The primary tool of evolution is death.
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