Date   : Sun, 17 May 2009 17:01:14 +0100
From   : darren.grant@... (Darren Grant)
Subject: Copyright

I have been trying to establish the current ownership of software and
documents from the Acorn 8bit era. Does anyone have any insight into what
happened. It seems that only the RiscOS and ARM technologies were ever
transferred from what was left of Acorn.

Have any of the companies that have owned parts of Acorn ever hinted that
the BBC Micro material belonged to them ?

The reason for asking is that I am working on a project to clarify all legal
issues relating to BBC Micro Emulation as there seems to be some grey areas
about ownership. The problem is that there is currently a possibility that a
copyright troll could attempt to block distribution of MOS with emulators,
something I am keen to avoid. One of the ways to potentially prevent this
would be to get the companies that have had some ownership of Acorn assets
to provide a statement that they do not have ownership and if they did later
discover that they did have some rights that they would permit use of the
Acorn 8bit software.

Darren