[Coco] [Color Computer] Hot Coco Post Partum

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 14:37 -0600, Michael Wayne Harwood wrote:
> IDG may not be able to prove that they own the copyright to Hot Coco
> material, but I suspect that if they desired to they would be able to
> provide a preponderance of evidence that many (if not all) of the authors of
> similar articles signed a similar agreement.  This could build a case that
> would have a good chance of winning in court in anyone contested their
> ownership of copyright.

Yeah, we're mostly in agreement (and I think that's about what I said).
I am not really arguing that, and I'm not suggesting that it's wise to
get into a legal fight with them.

> 
> If I read you right in regards to "orphan works" and "abandonware" you
> consider Hot Coco to fall into this category.  If so I respectfully
> disagree.  An "orphaned work" is considered such if you cannot contact the
> copyright holder to request permission.  In this case the copyright owner
> seems to be fairly clear, and though they are being selfish in how they are
> handling this they are fully within their rights.
> 

A distinction without a difference... there is no bulletproof clear
copyright holder for the original articles, so they cannot safely give
permission, and making it bulletproof would be a considerable expense.
So if not exactly the same thing, it's just like not being able to find
the copyright holder at all. They are likely the copyright holder for
all articles (by assignment) but as you said, it's only a supposition.
IDG claims that they don't have the original agreements. If they did
have them, it is possible that they could or would give permission or
sell licenses.

It's possible that they didn't require assignment for all articles, but
took it on a case-by-case basis. It's possible that they didn't require
assignment at some point, and they did afterward, etc.  We can't really
know what IDG would do if they were certain about all the copyrights.

Orphan works are not just an issue of location and contact with the
copyright holder. It's also what happens when "who owns the rights" is
too murky for legal purposes as in this case. A good solution to the
orphan works issue would solve this problem.

-- John.



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