rights vs preservation

[kamiga]

This has been on my mind for quite some time, and I'm interested to know what other people think.

Everyone wants to see companies involved with the Amiga supported.  We want to support software companies, hardware companies, authors of Amiga books, and so on.  We support these companies mostly through buying their products, but also by visiting their sites and clicking their advertisements.

But what happens when the companies basically shutdown, but sell their Intellectual Property to someone else?  Their IP can consist of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and so on.

Or what about when the self-published author decides to stop publishing his book, because there is no longer enough demand for it?

Or the shareware author leaves without a trace, but takes the serial number generator with him?

Or to extend it further, CBS decides that XYZ show is no longer popular enough to attract viewers, and so they take it off the air.  And there will be no DVD sold.

Once the monetary incentive is gone, these people hit the road. Goodbye software, goodbye information from the book, goodbye hardware. Now sometimes, we see a resurgence, sometimes we see next-gen hardware, or a reprint of a book.  But these are the exceptions.

And sure, there is always the 2nd hand market, but it sucks.  Gotta find someone who has it, find the Englishman 3000 miles away that can mail the floppy to you, or get a book mailed book rate from across the country.

At what point SHOULD these rights, often now held by a company that doesn't know what an Amiga is, revert back to the community that can continue to get use of these things?

As a last ditch effort, is piracy now ok to ensure that the software continues to be available, albeit illegally, online?  Many people think piracy is bad, but where there are no legal alternatives, or the legal alternatives are so cumbersome, how else is this stuff to be preserved?

When the authors no longer care enough about us, or about the information they painstakingly put together years ago, shouldn't it be OCR'd, preserved, and distributed to those who need the information?  Doesn't that expand the authors legacy vs violating his rights?

It seems, on its face, to be stupid to let books fall apart, software go bad on a floppy, instead of preserving them.  What a waste.

What do you think?

Keith

[kamiga]

@abbub: Amen brother re: your general attitude towards the situation, MPAA, RIAA, and so on.

@jetracer: re: There is a trend towards licensing vs owning something and I think it sucks.  If I buy a music CD (which I haven't in years, out of principle), darn it, I own that CD.  If I want to make a copy to listen in my car, I'm going to.  If I want to rip it and put in on my ipod, that's what I'm going to.  The RIAA actually wants to you to buy multiple copies in this case.  The licensing thing gets ridiculous.

@amithony: Amen, I'd release the stuff to public domain too.  And some of the companies have actually done that.  It's amazing and speaks highly of them.  I haven't dug into all the alternatives, but yes, minimig looks pretty cool.  Great piece of work.


In general, my beef is with these companies and authors whose livelihoods we supported for a long time.  And sure, maybe some didn't become as rich as others, but I'd say most creators with a solid product and decent business plan made money.  And so the community PAID for that software to be produced.  Sure, we paid after the fact.  And sure the company assumed the risk by fronting the money --- but they were rewarded for doing so.  So when there is no more money to be made, isn't it time to give that software back to the people who paid for it to be produced??

The other thing that really amazes me is how people can abandon months/years of hard work and have no desire to preserve what they've done.  Example: CBS aired a short-lived series in 1983 called "Whiz Kids", which featured young school kids solving crimes with the help of their home-brew computer.  It was an attempt to take advantage of the buzz surrounding the movie "War Games."  In any event, it only made it one season and was taken off the air.  Within the past five years or so, there's been a desire by at least some old fans to have it brought to DVD.  Now while there is about zero chance of that happening, someone managed to contact the co-producer of the series.  The co-producer said, "Wow. Yes, I remember that show.  But I don't have a copy."  He even indicated that the original company that produced it is unlikely to have a copy, perhaps jammed in some corner of a warehouse, unlabeled.

Now how does a company, the actors, the producers, the camera men, everyone involved, spend tons of time, money, energy on producing a show across 6 months, and nobody has a copy of the work?  To me, it's absurd.  It's absurd because these people should have more respect for the work they've done, for what they've produced.  Luckily, some evil pirates scanned some VHS tapes in, and have made all 18-episodes available online -- if even in questionable quality.

How can an author write a book, spend hours upon hours writing that book, and at the end of the day not say, "I'm done making money on this, let's give it away online for free."  Getting this stuff into PDF couldn't be easier today.  I keep mentioning authors because information is the KEY to preserving this technology.  Reverse engineering stuff is hard --- original documentation, source code, or info surrounding the product/software/OS/hardware AT THE TIME IT's MADE is extremely valuable.

Thanks for discussion

Keith

[kamiga]

For what it's worth, I managed to contact the producer of the show I mentioned a couple posts back.

I figured I really couldn't complain unless I tried to do something personally about it.

The producer got back to me.

He basically said that although he's tried to get the show put out on DVD that the company that owns the rights (Universal) simply doesn't think it's worth their while.  They didn't release a full season to begin with, and they think there's not enough interest.

So SOME people involved in the process DO care.  It's just the ones that have the ability to change things -- ie the ones in charge, don't think it's a worthwhile investment.

It's a shame that some larger organizations, like maybe the Library of Congress, or something, can't purchase these items and archive them.

Incidentally, the producer seemed to think that a mailing campaign of a few thousand people signing a petition and submitting it to Universal Home Video would do the trick.

Just a follow up

Keith

[kamiga]

Sig999 wrote:

It sucks when someone takes their ball and goes home - but at the end of the day they own the ball and can do with it as they please - even if that means doing nothing with it.

Do you think abandoning a piece of work, or specifically denying others rights to distribute it, does justice to the original effort put into creating it?  Assuming the profit potential is gone, as a creator, wouldn't you want to see more people using, enjoying, appreciating your creation?  Doesn't that add respect(to you, to your creation) and make your past effort seem more worthwhile?

To me, just knowing that others have appreciated my contributions to the community, is a reward that money could never replace.

Example: Let's say I wrote a book in 1990 on the Atari ST(sorry I can't resist).  Outside of that book, I'm a nobody, except in small circles.  I've made some money from the book, but the Atari ST went away, and it's no longer published.  It's now 18 years later and I'm approached out of the blue, by a well-meaning stranger, who wants to OCR my book, and make it available because a number of ST enthusiasts could really use the material.

I don't know about you, but I'd be jumping up and down for them to do this!!  WHY?  Because these people UNDERSTAND the value of that information.  They appreciate the work I did  18 years ago!!  My creation is still relevant!

Doesn't that improve your self-worth?  Why not?

Keith

[kamiga]

@Sig999: I understand your position on the matter completely.

Fortunately, for most people involved, things have a way of naturally taking care of themselves.......

Thanks