[Coco] The dire condition of software documentation..

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 8/12/19 9:58 AM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> On 2019-08-12 07:55, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> Copyright issues are never vague.  The holder being out of business
>> has no effect on the Copyright, legally.  The item is still Copyrighted.
> 
> Correct. The copyright office has never made a determination of when or 
> if orphaned works lose their protection, and until it does, copyright 
> exists in all those works.

Not just the Copyright Office's decision.  We are signatories to the
current International Copyright Agreement.

> 
> I wanted to quote a poem in a book I wrote about 10 years ago. It took 
> me months to trace the last person to hold the copyright (transferred 
> from author to newspaper to book publisher to bookstore to retired 
> owner). I found the owner in his mid-90s, with no heirs. He gave 
> permission. Good thing, as there was no right to reprint it if it was 
> orphaned by his death.
> 

Fair use comes into play, as well.  Quoting a line may be OK, but
not the whole thing.  Copyright is a complicated concept and I really
find all the people who try to say it isn't valid annoying.  There is
no such thing as "Abandonware."  I know as it has directly affected
the actions I can take in regards some of my old hardware.  I  have
even had to get rid of hardware because there is no legal way to run
it as a Hobbyist and there never will be.

bill