[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] Abandonware..

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Wed, 2005-05-11 at 22:44 +0200, Torsten Dittel wrote:
> you're right... but maybe you're living in the wrong country for your
> appreciated opinion... or maybe the wrong planet? Stupid people payed by
> other stupid people made stupid laws in the last few years... ;-)
> 
> 

Actually the copyright law, at least that at issue in abandonware has
been around for some time. I think reasonable people can agree that the
abandonware issue falls into the realm of "unintended consequences,"
which we can hope the congress is seriously intending to address (not
all that unlikely, given their recent request for the Librarian of
Congress to investigate the issue of Orphaned Works.)

Copyright of life+70, DMCA, etc are other bad things about copyright
that are more recent, but they don't have much to do with abandonware.
Computer software and books have a lot shorter lifespan than books and
movies, and the copyright law even before Sonny Bono Copyright Extension
Act was too long, at least for abandoned works.

-- John.