bill.martens{at}gmail.com wrote:
> On Jan 20, 7:12 am, Polymorph  wrote:
>> On Jan 20, 12:08 am, "Bill Buckels"
 wrote:
>>
>>> "Polymorph"
 wrote:
>>> This seems excessive. I am sorry you couldn't find time to
edit the pages
>>> that reference Mr. Cooper's literary work.
>> It may be a bit excessive, but it was the easiest way of ensuring that
>> anything "suspect" was no longer on offer. As I
mentioned, I plan on
>> putting my website back up, sans all the TML/Complete Pascal stuff. I
>> may even translate some of my demo programs that were originally
>> written under Complete Pascal into Orca/Pascal - which is a pretty
>> trivial task, but I just need to find the time.
>>
>>> The manual should be excluded. Despite the fact that it is a derivative
>>> work, it was produced for research and private study and the
product could
>>> not have been researched without it. Therefore it is a
research paper and
>>> has been published by you and belongs to you.
>> I'm no lawyer, so I have chosen to "play it safe" for now.
>>
>>> Please provide the manual to me and I will put it on my
Canadian Websitewww.appleoldies.ca
>>> I will inform this gentleman that it has been placed there
under MY RIGHTS
>>> under International Copyright Laws and is excluded from his
property rights
>>> which do not outweigh the rights of the public.
>>> I am not a lawyer of course but the fact is that we do not
live in a feudal
>>> society and we have rights as the public that local
jurisdictions can not
>>> enforce rulings against since they are bound by International Law.
>>> If I get any flack from this guy I will ask the Canadian Law Society to
>>> offer this from their website as well and I will tell him so.
>> Thanks for your support, I may take you up on your offer.
>>
>> It is just a shame that if this is the real Vince M. Cooper that he
>> chose to threaten legal action before requesting any TML/Complete
>> Pascal links be removed. For someone who has not been heard from in
>> the Apple II community for nearly 20 years, I think it was a bit over
>> the top. I also remember trying to find contact details for Vince way
>> back before placing anything on my website, but I turned up nothing.
>>
>> Anyway, please be patient and I'll try and get the site back up
>> without any TML/Complete Pascal links...
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mike
> 
> Mike has it right.  As Abandon-ware, it is only Abandon-ware if no one
> author can be truly found with a reasonable search or is dead or if
> the author has specified that they are abandoning the program.  Vince
> is well within his rights as the author in any country (Yes, even
> Canada and China when the government decides to enforce the laws) to
> claim his rights over his product.

However, anyone who purports to own a copyright must demonstrate
that he or she is, in fact, the rightful owner of the work.

>                                    In that respect, it is not abandon-
> ware.  Although I use abandon-ware, I often wonder about this whole
> thing as well.  Is is ever truly abandon-ware?  Our laws are being
> written in the US so that you will have to maintain your copyright and
> pay the government in order to keep it.  This will in effect cause any
> program that was written in the 1980's to all but lost its copyrighted
> status unless tha author maintains the copyright, but that could be
> very costly.

I think this is an appropriate solution.

It acknowledges that a copyright provides a benefit to an author
in the act of imposing limits on all others, and such a limitation
must be continually justified by a payment of value from the owner.

I'd suggest a fixed payment of at least $200/year with an added tax
of 1% of the total receipts attributable to the copyrighted work.
This would cause the tax to be significant, and would force careful
consideration of the value of continuing a copyright.

> However, if I remember the 1980 copyright law correctly, just putting
> your name on the program means it is a copyrighted work, no matter
> what year it is.  I have had to remove programs before because of this
> and usually C&D compliance is the best idea. There are cases where it
> doesnt come down to that, such as the case of Symantec choosing not to
> go after the entire community on Copy II +.   After all they paid 60
> million dollars for Central Point and then shut down the entire line.
> So then the question comes, is it abandon-ware or still copyrighted
> material.  Although most of us would say it is abandon-ware at that
> point, under the law, Symantec could come along and say it is
> copyrighted and remove it.

The fact that they can do this in defiance of the public good is
my major problem with current US copyright law.

> Personally, I dont think whether he threatened legal action or not is
> the point.  The manual and the software is his product, thus it is his
> copyright.  This is not the same as proving loss in a court of law.
> It is only the copyright.  but that still means he can request that
> you take it down and if you refuse, take you to court and then if a
> judge is feeling good that day, give him and his legal team as much
> damages as the judge feels it warrants. (pray you dont get one who is
> an Apple II enthusiast who buys and sells on Ebay).  Copyrights cover
> any written work that is original and if I am not mistaken, can even
> be applied to emails and blogs and probably even our posts here.
> LOL.

Yes, the current state of copyright in the US is *much* too inclusive
and lasts *long* after the holder's death--exactly how long depends
on whatever is required to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.
;-)

> In the mean time, I have send an email to Vince since he was one of
> our writers in the late 1980's asking him what his intentions are with
> the program.  Hopefully, he will put up a site and make it available
> in some form again so that we all can continue to enjoy the program
> (and manual).

One certainly can hope, even when his initial approach to the
community seems to suggest quite the opposite.

-michael

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