Piracy was Re: HH drives

From: Paul Berger <sanepsycho_at_globaldialog.com>
Date: Tue Apr 15 20:22:00 2003

On Tue, 2003-04-15 at 19:09, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
> The only problem here is something I saw done ( and
> admitted to ) in shareware. The product was release to
> shareware with a known bug. In order to get it fixed,
> simply pay for the support/upgrade. I chose to delete
> the original and not use either.

Hopefully such products would not last long in the market. I wonder
sometimes if such a strategy is used by certain other large software
vendors that I won't mention.

> I had a couple of shareware programs that I released.
> They were used by many hundreds of people. I only had
> 4 people send me the $5. I'm not complaining. Actually
> I'm happy that so many found them useful. I'll have to
> admit that most were college students so they have a good
> excuse.

Myself I've paid for software that I find useful even if I was not
required by the license. If I use a utility that has a donate link on
the site I will throw a couple spare bucks to. I know I am unusual, most
people I know abuse shareware licenses far beyond anything reasonable, I
find this sad since most can afford to pay.

There are some shareware utilities (DIRMAN is an example of one) that I
would like to pay for, but I can't find the author.

<SNIP>
> My only complaint is with abandonware. When the code is
> no longer relevant, why hang onto it as though it were
> of some value. I can see that one could make a point that
> there might be something in the source that was of value
> but the application is different.

Things where the copyright is essentially abandoned like much software
that is more than 10 years old, old book that are not published, and
most old movies moldering in vaults are a big problem. Most you can't
determine the current holder of the copyright to request permission, and
the current holder may not even know what they have.

This is why it should never have gotten away from the system that
existed pre 1973 where the holder had to renew copyright after 28 years
for 28 years or else it went into the public domain. Pulling numbers out
of the air I would say 20 years with 10 year increments till 70-90 years
would be fine.

Regards,
Paul
Received on Tue Apr 15 2003 - 20:22:00 BST