From: poehland%phvax.dnet@SMITHKLINE.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Old Software
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:52:10 GMT

Tsk, tsk, tsk!  Now Michael, you are such a very naughty boy!  How many times
have Mummy & Daddy told you about that temper of yours?  You know, Santa Claus
might not come to your house this year if you keep doing that.  So run along
now & apologize to Uncle Darek.  Unle Darek is a very nice man & has given us
many fine & wonderful things.

<Aside, to Uncle Darek>.  Really, Uncle, it certainly was not very nice of you
to label us all pirates.  Dear me, Joe 6-Pack.  Stupid, moron, & other ravings.
I do hope you haven't been skipping your lithium tablets again.  You KNOW what
happens when you do that, the doctor will have to commence those nasty shock
treatments.  You don't want THAT again, do you?

So, you two boys shake hands now.  There, that's better.  Uncle Darek, wipe
that foam off your mouth.  And Michael, quit sticking out your tongue or it's
no Santa for you this year.....

Us Alchemists are getting too old for this.  Martha, I thought you told me the
children were all grown up!  Sheesh.       <tee-hee!>

OK, serious now.  The experiences- & attitudes- expressed by people such as
Jeff McWilliams & Uncle Fester are quite common.  Most of us still in this
market admit it only furtively.  Jeff only expressed sentiments which quite a
few 8bitters hold.  Myself among them.  I, too, passed thru a stage a stage
when people handed me copied software like it was no big deal, & I accepted it.
I guess it was a period of 8 months, right after I bought my first 800XL.  Then
I read an editorial on piracy in ANALOG.  I changed my ways.

I DESTROYED all the pirated software in my possession.
I went out & BOUGHT as much of the destroyed material as I could find.  That was
in 1985 or '86, when there was still a viable 8bit market.  I replaced about 95%
of the destroyed material over the next year or so.  Not only did I have the
satisfaction of knowing I was supporting the legitimate 8bit market, but it sure
was nice to get a *manual* with the software, which the pimple-peppered
teenybopper pirates never bothered to reproduce.  (In my area most of the
pirates turned out to be 13-16 year-olds who swapped software & baseball cards
interchangeably.)

About a year ago, in the July/Aug 1991 Current Notes, I raised up the indig-
nant hand of an honest user & smote a mighty blow against 8bit piracy by
publicly exposing the DataRush operation as the most blatant pirate vendor I
had ever seen.  Using money that was later repaid to me by Current Notes, I
purchased a number of copies of then-current commercial software, & published
the list of pirate titles I had obtained.  One of the companies whose products
were being pirated elected to pursue the DataRush operation & persuaded its
owner to adopt a different occupation.  I counted a great victory, & waited for
the 8bit market to rebound.  It didn't.

In all of 1991, there were only 2 new releases of commercial software for the
8bits.  They were: Movie Credits by LJK; & ChromaCAD by Marv Seaman.  With 
some difficulty I expedited arrangements to get reviews of those 2 programs
published in CN.

But that was last year.  Now it's 1992, & everything is different.

In 1991, Atari still officially supported the 8bit community.  But beginning
in 1992, Atari has kicked out butts out in the cold.
ICD has abandoned us.
EXPLORER, whose 8bit coverage was never more than superficial, has undergone
yet another shakeup (the phrase "Jack attack" comes to mind).
PSAN folded.

And I must confess I have had second thoughts about the DataRush affair.  He was
so darn brazen about it, it was like he wore a neon sign that said, "I'm a
pirate & proud of it!"  I did the right thing then, & given the same circum-
stances I would do it again today.

But if I encountered a pirate who had the good sense to stay in his dark slime
pit where he belongs, would I still go after him, skewer the vermin on the end
of my pen, & expose the monster in the pages of some magazine?  I honestly
don't know, & I hope the situation never arises.  The very fact that I now
vacillate on this question troubles me deeply.

In this, Year One of our excommunication from the Tramiel Entente, not one
single new piece of commercial 8bit software has appeared.  That also troubles
me greatly.

In the past couple issues of this Digest several people have expressed quasi-
legal opinions on the legality of copying abandoned software.  Judging by the
contradictory nature of those opinions, the legal issues are just as murky as
the moral ones.

Yet, as our community contines to sputter on despite all the currents that are
flowing against us, this is an issue which more than any other, tears at the
conscience & knaws upon the inner fabric of moral sensibility.  Most of us out 
here are very decent people.  We are not pirates or criminals.  We want to do
what is right.

But we also want to SURVIVE, to maintain our faith in the brotherhood & compan-
ionship of other 8bit users like ourselves.  We have all paid our dues, & we 
have a RIGHT to this existence!

Perhaps if as much energy were expended upon serious professional legal research
& open discussion of the moral issues involved as was spent upon the recent
silly flame war, we might actually accomplish something useful for ourselves.

     - BEN POEHLAND
       The Alchemist

Responses to this msg, post to csa8 or IA8, not to me personally.

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