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Law Review Note

njroadfan said:
The rights holders of AmigaOS is complex, but known. The Apple II community ran into this problem with trying to get WordPerfect for the Apple II and IIgs reclassified as freely distributed. Turns out that Corel doesn't own the rights to it. I don't recall how that wild goose chase ended.
Click to expand...

"Having obtained the rights for Word Perfect IIe, IIc v1.1 and WordPerfect IIgs v2.1x in December of last year from the owner and copyright holder Larry Epstein, I hereby release them both into the public domain."

http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/WordPerfectPD.html

AmigaOS is still actively being developed, although they did release an ominously named "Final Edition":

http://www.amigaos.net/
 
Not so in the US. In fact, if a company is not a publicly-traded one, there's no reason that it has to divulge any information about assets at all, much less publicize them.

Take Warner Brothers, for example, who claims ownership of the song "Happy Birthday to You". They don't advertise this much (and the ownership of the copyright has been the subject of legal challenge) but the song brings in about US$2 million every year, like clockwork.

To put it another way--you find a car parked with no driver around. A couple of weeks go by and no one shows up to claim it and a title search shows that the registered owner is deceased. Does that mean that you can take the car for your own without the involvement of legal authorities? Do you argue that since the car isn't new and the registered owner is dead that it's perfectly legitimate "finders keepers" "abandonware" material?

There's always an owner--if it's the estate of the originator.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Take Warner Brothers, for example, who claims ownership of the song "Happy Birthday to You". They don't advertise this much (and the ownership of the copyright has been the subject of legal challenge) but the song brings in about US$2 million every year, like clockwork.
Click to expand...

That could come to an end soon:

An Old Songbook Could Put ‘Happy Birthday’ in the Public Domain
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/b...happy-birthday-in-the-public-domain.html?_r=0

To put it another way--you find a car parked with no driver around. A couple of weeks go by and no one shows up to claim it and a title search shows that the registered owner is deceased. Does that mean that you can take the car for your own without the involvement of legal authorities? Do you argue that since the car isn't new and the registered owner is dead that it's perfectly legitimate "finders keepers" "abandonware" material?

There's always an owner--if it's the estate of the originator.
Click to expand...

Bad analogy, because we're talking about making copies of an item, rather than just taking a single item.

Google Books has pretty much proven that you're free to make and distribute copies of "abandonware" -- as long as you have the best legal team that money can buy, to back you up in court.
 
Vwestlife: Did you obtain a license or did you obtain ownership and copyright privileges?

Chuck(G) the process you're referring to for legally stealing a car is called Adverse Possession (I only know this in relation to real property - only because that's the only context in which I've studied it - first topic in Property at law school, actually). It requires more than a few weeks to run out the statutory period. It is possible that some cases of notorious copyright infringement over a very long period of time lend themselves to electronic IP adverse possession cases. I don't know anything about adverse possession in that context, but (http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v16/16HarvJLTech327.pdf) get back to me on it - or I'll get back to you when I have time to read up.
 
There are laws regarding abandonment of property which allows others to take over and use that land, roughly 10 years of non-use in Connecticut. Under the early 28 year copyright term, few works would have a long period of abandonment before falling into the public domain. The current very long term may require some adjustments to laws including the prospect of a legal definition for abandoned copyright.

I don't like the ex post facto lengthening of copyright terms. I don't like the catch me if you can approach underlying much abandonware distribution.
 
In the UK if the car wasn't taxed then it would be towed. Tangible assets such as land can be claimed if abandoned:-

http://www.unclaimedfinances.co.uk/facts-unclaimed-land-property-uk.html

as I said IPR can revert to the crown who can disclaim it:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...vacantia-dissolved-companies-bvc1#asset-types

which sounds to me like legal abandonment......
... on the other hand if I pick up a monetary note (£5, €5 or $5) and keep it that used to be "theft by finding"....

Also note the copyright on the "twelve days of Christmas" is only since 1909 and is the version with the long "5 gold rings"....
.. I wonder if this infringes that copyright....

Code: 
/* 
* seriously -- run it :-) 
*/ 
#include <stdio.h> 
main(t,_,a) 
char *a; 
{ 
return!0<t?t<3?main(-79,-13,a+main(-87,1-_,main(-86,0,a+1)+a)): 
1,t<_?main(t+1,_,a):3,main(-94,-27+t,a)&&t==2?_<13? 
main(2,_+1,"%s %d %d\n"):9:16:t<0?t<-72?main(_,t, 
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#\ 
;#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l \ 
q#'+d'K#!/+k#;q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;#\ 
){nl]!/n{n#'; r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#n'wk nw' \ 
iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c \ 
;;{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# \ 
}'+}##(!!/") 
:t<-50?_==*a?putchar(31[a]):main(-65,_,a+1):main((*a=='/')+t,_,a+1) 
:0<t?main(2,2,"%s"):*a=='/'||main(0,main(-61,*a, 
"!ek;dc i@bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry"),a+1); 
}
 
The thing with copyright is that it differs particularly with legacy works. The UK has traditionally used a life+70 type of arrangement, where if a composer of a piece died young, the copyright would not be worth as much as if the composer was in good health and lived to a ripe old age. The great body of US copyright material is date of publication+75 or 95 years, with anything published before 1923 in the public domain.

Case in point: Archibald Joyce, the composer of the "Autumn Dream" waltz. Born in 1873, but died in 1963. Copyright on that waltz, which was in the White Star Line music books when the HMS Titanic sunk, is still under copyright in the UK. The Russians have been playing that as a popular melody since about 1920, observing no copyright at all. In the US, the work was published in the early 1920s and so is in the public domain.

Or consider Orwell's "1984". Very much covered by copyright in the UK, but not in Australia, where their life+50 has lapsed. Can a UK citizen legally download a copy from an Australian web site?

Much of Shostakovitch's oeuvre was in the public domain in the US, since the old Soviet Union didn't recognize copyright. Later, it became part of the so-called "restored copyright" material, showing you can indeed put the toothpaste back into the tube if you're the US Congress.
 
I'm not sure this has to do with copyright, but Motorola has been known to very strict on the redistribution of their radio programming software. After 9/11, Several federal and state agencies upgraded to newer radios which allowed the various agencies to have their own distinct bands/ frequencies, yet talk to other agencies on their secure frequencies. After the change, their older radios were donated to fire departments, paramedics, and other first responders that didn't require the extra features. Unless the department giving away the radios also gave away the computer that contained the software, there was no way get obtain a copy of the software (or activation of it) from Motorola. My understanding is because these radios can be programmed to operate on non-commercial bands or proprietary bands used by police and government agencies, they limit access to only the original owners of the radios. The logic behind the decision makes sense (keep it out of the wrong hands), however I'm not understanding why it can't be distributed to another municipal agency?
 
When the government gets involved, all sorts of strange things happen. Remember the ban export of equipment employing on certain types of encryption that ran for decades? It made no sense at all, but doubtless kept many looney congressmen happy.

Remember when analog TVs and radio scanners were required to limit their range to just under 900 MHz? I used to listed to the old analogue cellphone calls by tuning my TV to around channel 80. Or the telecommunications law that was in force since the end of WWII that said that it was okay to listen to private conversations (e.g. ship-to-shore radio) but not to divulge what you heard?

Laws can be very strange and often do little other than reflect the ignorance of their authors (who are usually lawyers who know only what their staffers tell them).
 
Moondog said:
The logic behind the decision makes sense (keep it out of the wrong hands), however I'm not understanding why it can't be distributed to another municipal agency?
Click to expand...

Because Motorola wants them to buy new radios, and the programming computer to go along with it -- duh! :p

That reminds me of GM's "TheftLock" radios. Those radios need to be programmed to match a vehicle's ECM in order for them to work -- requiring a special computer tool that only GM dealers have. If you ever have to replace one of those TheftLock radios in the future, you'll be at the mercy of 1.) GM staying in business, and 2.) GM dealers continuing to have the computer to program them.
 
I wouldn't fancy you're chances on getting out alive though :)
 
(Evan I also sent you a PM). I suspect the Motorola thing is a licensing issue, same as with OSX86. That's not really a copyright issue. It would not be redistributable if the terms of the license prevent resale. The same concept restricts OSX to Macintosh hardware. However, breach of said EULA has not been tested (to my knowledge) in litigation in a noncommercial context.
 
It also seems to me that at least one version of Lexmark printer a few years back had rigged its cartridges so that one had to use their refills. One enterprising outfit figured out how to reset the "this cartridge has been used" with the result that Lexmark sued. I believe that Lexmark's claim was denied, but I"m not certain.

Basically, another licensing claim.
 
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