The Gentleman's Debate: Should the 1.3 ROM be made free?

[mikeymike]

mdwh2 wrote:

mikeymike wrote:
Amiga ROM to free use on the Internet *could* mean a loss of rights (maybe some, maybe all) to the operating system, and that may or may not include more recent released.

No it wouldn't.
I'm not sure what you are saying here, but no rights are lost, and later OS versions are competely unaffected.

Presumably you are a lawyer, not only a lawyer but Amiga Inc's lawyer who is completely familiar with the situation?

Thought not.  Perhaps you shouldn't suggest that something is definitely so (or not so), when you don't know?

Note to everyone thinking about contributing to this thread:  Let's not have a thread where people act like they're lawyers.

[Belial6]

It is fair for mdwh2 to infer from that MILLIONS of web pages that are distributed over the internet, and still protected by copyright, that distribution over the internet does not void ones copyright.  There are BILLIONS of examples of copyrighted works being distributed without payment without the loss of copyright.

Just walk over to your radio and turn it on...Tada!!! A copyrighted work has just been distributed to you without payment, and the owner (likely not the artist) still has a valid copyright to the work.

So, playing the "your not a lawyer" card is unfair.

[mdwh2]

mikeymike wrote:
Presumably you are a lawyer, not only a lawyer but Amiga Inc's lawyer who is completely familiar with the situation?

Thought not.  Perhaps you shouldn't suggest that something is definitely so (or not so), when you don't know?

Note to everyone thinking about contributing to this thread:  Let's not have a thread where people act like they're lawyers.

Are you a lawyer then? Not only a lawyer but Amiga Inc's lawyer who is completely familiar with the situation?

Thought not.

You're the one making the claim, not me, and you haven't even given your reasoning on how it could affect their IP or future OS versions, let alone backed this up with legal proof..

Note to everyone thinking about contributing to this thread:  Let's not have a thread where people act like they're lawyers.

[Ilwrath]

Amiga ROM to free use on the Internet *could* mean a loss of rights (maybe some, maybe all) to the operating system, and that may or may not include more recent released.

No it wouldn't.
I'm not sure what you are saying here, but no rights are lost, and later OS versions are competely unaffected.

Presumably you are a lawyer, not only a lawyer but Amiga Inc's lawyer who is completely familiar with the situation?

Thought not. Perhaps you shouldn't suggest that something is definitely so (or not so), when you don't know?

Note to everyone thinking about contributing to this thread: Let's not have a thread where people act like they're lawyers.

Well, obviously we're not lawyers.  Otherwise, we'd be out making money, instead of bickering around on this post.  But it only takes a basic understanding of copyright law to understand that you can give away something as "free for personal use" without giving up your copyright of it.  This, alone, pretty much nullifies the argument of IP danger.

So, as for the question of should the 1.3 roms be released for free...Yes, they should. They are a over a decade old. Their value is no longer based on the quality of the code, but on the nestalga value that the users create.

It is a sad day when pieces of the worlds culture is lost, and with the current trend in copyright, we will loose large parts of our culture. The worst part of this is that we won't loose our cultural heritage because we cannot preserve it, and we will not loose our cultural heritage because people will not preserve it. We will loose our cultural heritage because of greed. The greed that has convinced the populous that copyright should last long beyond the real commercial value that lead to the creation of the work. That it should last forever because it MIGHT someday be worth SOMETHING.

I totally agree with where you're coming from here, Belial6.  But I don't think it applies, in this case.  The AmigaROM kernel is not in danger of being lost.  It is quite easily available legally.  It's still being published and distributed for a reasonable cost, as part of the Amiga Forever package.    

For works that have no legal way to be obtained, I agree that after a short period of time they should be opened to be preserved.  

[mikeymike]

It is fair for mdwh2 to infer from

You hit on the problem straight away:  "infer".

[mikeymike]

mdwh2, read what I wrote again, I said "could", not "does" or "does not".  As in, not fact, possibility.  As in, "I don't know but this might be the case".

You retorted with a 'statement of fact' that you do not know to be true.

If you had responded "I doubt that because of x y and z", that would be different.

[mdwh2]

I know you said "could" - to me that means that in some cases that would happen, and that you were making a statement of fact.

If you meant it in the sense of "I don't know but this might be the case", well that's something different, and my response is that my opinion is that is not the case. What I stated was my opinion just as much as you stated your opinion..

I may not be a lawyer, but I base this opinion on that I know of no case where giving software for free would necessarily result in involuntary loss of rights to that software, let alone later versions, despite the fact that giving away things for free happens fairly often (eg, webpages as Belial6 says, or things like Internet Explorer).

[Belial6]

Ok, don't try make the argument sound invalid because I used the word 'infer'.  You live your life by infering things.  You also make thousands of 'Assumptions'.  All Science is based on 'inferning' things.

It all starts with infering that because "I think, therefore I am."  That's right.  So, there is no problem.  The word infer is perfectly acceptable, and does not degrade the argument in even the slightest way.

Your comment does imply that YOU did not infer anything, and just made up the idea of loosing rights from thin air.  I will take imperical evidence over just made up fact any day.

So, playing the "your not a lawyer" card is still unfair.

[The_Power_of_the_Ginger]

My, what have I stirred? Still, a debate's a debate, and I asked for a minefield...

Just to clarify, I'm not a pirate or anything. I own an Amiga 1200, WinUAE, and a legal 3.1 ROM. (Bully for me, I've even got OS 3.9 running happily under emulation, although the T-Zero demo I've got runs a bit slow. Tch.)

Seriously, don't take down my contact details and report me to FAST, or doing anything hasty like that. It's legal. If it isn't, please tell me and the thousands of other WinUAE users...:-D

All I wanted to know, really, was if novice users like User X could relive their Amiga days (we'll assume they sold their Amiga long ago, or they simply can't use it now) more easily than now, by getting hold of a ROM legally (as company X made it free). 'Twas a hypothetical situation, m'lud, and not a personal one.

The defence rests. (Darn it, watching too many episodes of Law & Order...)

Ooh, I wish I'd stuck on the Kid chaos thread. I knew what I was talking about then... :-D

[The_Power_of_the_Ginger]

Incidentally, the only reason I didn't get Amiga Forever 6 was because I've got all I need now (excpet maybe CD32 emulation, but perhaps I can live without that). I agree it is a terrific package, and if more people knew about it ("Hey, kids! 14 computers for less than the price of a Playstation One!") it would skyrocket in sales. I just have everything I need, but if I didn't, I'd have bought it in no time.

Perhaps as compensation for my refusal to purchase it, I should spend my summer in a city centre wearing a sandwich board saying "Buy Amiga Forever from Clotanto! Only about the price of a pair of jeans!". Possibly. And learn what the correct spelling of Clotanto is.;-)

[mikeymike]

Belial6 wrote:
Ok, don't try make the argument sound invalid because I used the word 'infer'.  You live your life by infering things.  You also make thousands of 'Assumptions'.  All Science is based on 'inferning' things.

How many generally-accepted facts are there that are based on inference?

Clue:  They're not facts if they're based on inference.  They're theories, beliefs, etc.  There are commonly-accepted theories too, but they're still called theories because they haven't been proven, they just happen to fit the evidence available presently.

[Belial6]

Funny how you quoted the first paragraph, and ignored the second.  If you want to play the theory/fact game, then their are no facts.  Why because you can only prove a fact with other facts.  Those facts must be proven with facts, and so on.  Since, you cannot even PROVE that our existance is a FACT, how can you claim to have any "facts"?  What we all do is take certain "theories" and accept them as fact.  Hence the "I think therefore I am" statement.

What is often done is people "infer" what they call "facts" from empirical evidence.  These are not "facts" in the true sense of the word because they rely on the theory that the person can precieve the evidence correctly.  (Which we have plenty of empirical evidence that this is sketchy at best).  So, if you have any true FACT, bring them forward, but please don't try to pretend that your guesses are closer to fact than others "theories" that are bases on BILLIONS of examples of empirical data.

So, still the lawyer comment was unfair.

[kgrach]

Cloanto Paid money for the rights to distribute the old ROM's
so their is money to be made from the sale of 1.3 roms

Also correct me if I am wrong but didn't Amithlon get into trouble because of the IP infringement caused by putting part of the kickstart code into Amithlon


Here's a neat idea I know lots of dealers who tossed lot's but still hold stacks of old roms. I have a ton of old 1.2 and 1.3 ROM's also 2.0,2.1 and 3.0 ROM's for various Amiga systems. Get a dealer to give or sell you the stack of old  ROM chips. Now you should be able to legaly give people copies of the ROM images as long as each Disk image is is accompanied with a physical ROM chip.

Still might be illegal in some countries, please check with your local shiester.

kgrach

uhh I own a ton of Amigas. but still brought a copy of Amiga forever. Mainly becuase I couldn't be bothered to stick the old Rom chips in my Amigas and pull the images off them.

[minator]

My own thought is Mikeymike is correct in that KMOS are holding the rights to the ROMs in case they might make some money some day.  I doubt them or Cloanto are making much from them currently and as time rolls on their chances of making any real money diminish.

So yes I think the 68K versions of Amiga OS (3.1 and before at least) should be released to public domain.

I can understand why they would not want to open source it though as MOS might benefit from looking at the code.

Nothing to do with freeloading BTW, it's not commercially useful anymore so why keep it?

--

Now, here's a question:
Who owns the rights to AOS 3.2?
There are only 2 copies in existence I know of but I've simply no idea who owns the copyrights.