From: crow@coos.dartmouth.edu (Preston F. Crow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Perspectives on Piracy (My Error??).
Date: 30 Jul 92 17:15:34 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In <0095E574CA91AF40.20200BCA@edinboro.edu> a644690c@edinboro.edu ("Adam J. Conover") writes:

>> Adam, 
>> 
>> I follow your point about buyig an original from a friend, but I don't
>> condone cpying commercial programs, even if the company "isn't around
>> anymore."  If the company had folded, the softwar reverts back to the
>> author.  A lot of comapnies that aren't in the Atari market anymore are
>> still around.  The best thing, would be to get the company to release
>> the old commercial game into the public domain.  If a company isn't
>> around (ie alive), we should tr to get ahold of the author, andsee if 
>> he/she will release the program into the PD.  Who knows who wrote 
>> Paperclip, for example?  Wouldn't it be nice to get software out into
>> the public domain, and maybe if we get lucky, source code could come with
>> it, for someone like Bob Puff to make an update.
>> 
>> That's the solution, not piracy.
>> 
>>                 Pattie Rayl (Atari Interface)

>You make an interesting point about the actual ownership of software.  I
>have always been under the impression that work done for hire or contract
>becomes the legal property of the contractor or company involved.  Similar
>to the early Atari days where Programmers were not even allowed to include
>their names in there works.  If the law does indeed state that the copyright
>falls back to the programmer if a company collapses, then my opinion
>certainly changes in that respect.
I think that depends on the contract that the company made with the
programmers.  If the programmers were employees, then the odds are that
they have no rights to the software whatsoever.  If the programmers sold
the completed work to the software company, then it would be likely that the
copyrights would go back to the programmer.  If nothing was mentioned in the
contract, however, I think that the copyright wouldn't default to them.
The copyright is property, just as the office furniture of the software
company.  If the company went belly up, then likely all remaining assets
were sold to some liquidator who would now inadvertantly own the copyrights
without (possibly) even knowing it.  This is, of course, speculation.
Are there any lawyers out there who know about this stuff?  Any programmers
who know who has the rights to what they wrote?

The issue now is to track down who owns the copyrights.  Then we need to
get the Atari implementations released for public distribution.  Anyone
approaching copyright holders should avoid the phrase "public domain."
Especially if the company is still selling software for other platforms,
they will want to retain the rights to the name/concept of the software.
Perhaps the best suggestion is for them to sign a statement granting a license
for every owner of an Atari 400/800/XL/XE system to use their software
on that system.  Such a declaration would protect the company from loss
of control of implementations on other platforms while making the software
effectively public domain for the Atari 8-bit community.

Perhaps someone should write up a proposed statement for copyright holders
to issue that would protect their rights while making the software available
for Atari users.

--PC