at the temporal coordinates: 9/5/01 8:49 AM, the entity known as eric engle
at engleerica_at_yahoo.com conveyed the following:
> Oh I forgot to say: the reason abandonware sux is that
> _no one is ever gonna make money of it_
> BUT
> since it was originally a licensed product
> by a (probably) still existing corporation
> it is _not shareware and cannot be freely uploaded.
>
> Which sux. Where are you gonna find the corporation
> which went out of business, was merged, or where
> directors retired? Your not gonna, there is no money
> in it - and the result is _wasted human resources_
Makes Thomas Jefferson & Co. seem sort of prescient, doesn't it. They
asserted that long-term monopolies over ideas were a BAD THING. They were
very conscious of trying to balance the free flow and expression of ideas
against the fairness of allowing a person to profit from their novel and
unique ideas. I seem to recall that they wanted copyrights to last only as
long as patents, i.e., about 14 years. Unfortunately, this conviction has
been lost and now copyrights last on the order of 95 years. (Don't recall
if that's after the copyrightholder's death or just 95 total.)
- Eric.
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