Date   : Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:07:47 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Distribution of old software

David Harper wrote:
> What are the opinions of the people on this list about the sharing of 
> old software? I am thinking of software for the Beeb which, presumably, 
> is still within copyright, but which is otherwise unobtainable, which 
> will never be sold again commercially, and from which no-one would ever 
> expect to make any further profit.

Technically illegal, but I'd put it up on the web with an obvious 
paragraph to the effect that you no longer know what the copyright 
situation is and that you're making the disk images available 
until/unless the copyright owner steps forward and asks for them to be 
removed.

No company's going to get in a legal fight in that situation; all it'd 
do would make them look bad.

Of course, a company being petty and asking for removal of 20 year old 8 
bit software also looks bad, something which the better ones out there 
(those that still survive!) will hopefully realise.

At the end of the day, making the software available probably does them 
a favour as it stil keeps their name in the back of peoples' minds.

> In a similar vein, I have quite a lot of the programs produced for the 
> 512 by Essential Software. (I wrote a few of them.) Essential Software 
> closed down in 1994, and I have not been in touch with Robin Burton 
> since then. I doubt that he would want payment for any of these items 
> now, but is it acceptable to share them?

The case for application rather than system software is perhaps a little 
more cloudy, but I'd still share them until anyone objected. In 1994 the 
world was still on early 486 PCs - things have moved along quite a bit 
since then!

cheers

Jules