"David Schmenk"  wrote:
>I found this clause rather interesting while reading this section of the US 
>copyright law:

>"108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and 
>archives"

The research and private study exceptions seem simpler than this and somehow 
more honest which is why I like them. They also appeal to the free spirit of 
vintage computing in general.

However they are more fragile and more easily challenged

Real vintage computing folks would never dream of selling Abandonware or 
making money from their hobby unless a coincidental service was provided by 
them at a fair price and I bet that person doesn't make much money. That's 
the point of evolution and understanding that a vintage human being gets to 
anyway:)

I do feel that a combination of the two (libraries and archives for research 
and private study) provides a framework.

>Emulators muddy up the idea of "necessary device".

Copyright muddies-up preservation of culture and history. If one is going to 
extend what was intended for literary works to Software then perhaps one 
should also extend Disabled Accessability exceptions to emulators for 
obsolete devices not used in a commercial setting.

One feels like a frantic rat in a maze of the wrong kind. Only a rat who is 
a lawyer would not be frantic.

>As you point out, there seems to be some grey area in the interpretation of 
>copyright law.

And black holes and worm holes and a-holes and other types of holes.

>IANAL, but this is an interesting topic for us retro-computer "researchers 
>and archivists" :-)

One of the problems is that lawyers are also researchers and archivists 
whose understanding of research is adversarial; a weapon for killing and 
plunder rather than a tool for study and they do not allow for a 
sophisticated "distinct society" that exists simply to research
and to share 
and enjoy.

This also conjures up images of blankets infected with small pox... beware 
of soldiers bearing gifts.

Now Dave, one of the reasons you are smiling is probably because like most 
you get sinful enjoyment from all this old homebrew.

I won't denigrate the purpose of the higher layers of this discussion by 
cheap-shots about eye-patches. OTOH I sometimes feel like Robert Mitchum in 
Thunder Road.

Yay! So at this point Software Copyright claims become a sin-tax (PU)

The only conclusion I can draw is AbandonWare is currently an Onion with 
Copyright at its rotten core when it should be like an Apple with all of us 
wearing pots on our heads and bags of disks at our sides.

Next they'll be taxing the vegetables in my garden. Already the bylaw 
inspectors are out looking for plants with 5 and 7 leaves:)

Here's an interesting fact. My wife's grandfather who is gone now was an 
antique collector of Icelandic Regional History in the part of Manitoba that 
was once the "Republic of New Iceland" which is where I live and
commute to 
Winnipeg to develop software when not Commercially Fishing on the 11th 
largest freshwater lake in the world.

Anyway, he had scythes mixed with old punch-presses and metal cigarette 
cases from the '30's and even a restored Model-T Ford which he drove in 
Shriner Parades. Some of the stuff he found, and some he bought, and some he 
was given.

He had Ships' Wheels mounted on stands where kids could turn them and 
pretend, and he had compasses, pocket knives, lanterns and buildings filled 
with collections all in glass cases or placed neatly where you and I and 
kids and adults could handle them. The local and other schools would come on 
tours.

The whole point in my true story is that although a lawyer or an analyst 
will examine such a scenario with suspicion for motive and with what I 
consider ethical malfeasance and moral bankruptcy, at the end of the day 
what we are talking about here for ourselves is the same thing as Grandpa's 
Museum and all the other little museums in all the small towns.

The worst apples in the barrel are these greedy pigs at the trough though 
who kill the piglets by squeezing them out.  The bigger the bum the better 
the bacon I say:)

Seriously though (almost all mixing of metaphors aside), a library at a 
University that sanctions off-site vintage computing archives as 
uncatalogued cottage branches would stand a fighting chance against the pigs 
at the trough. Libraries have internet services anyway so what do they need 
catalogues for?

The National Archives of Canada is just a pile of bureaucratic crap as far 
as I am concerned.

Bill
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