Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!indri!ames!sun-barr!decwrl!fernwood!asylum!langz
From: langz@asylum.SF.CA.US (Lang Zerner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Software thieves (was Re: Software theives)
Message-ID: <3473@asylum.SF.CA.US>
Date: 21 Aug 89 09:19:16 GMT
References: <30706@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <6846@rpi.edu> <2361@raspail.cdcnet.cdc.com> <6865@rpi.edu> <58013@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <12133@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <6877@rpi.edu> <12140@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: langz@asylum.UUCP (Lang Zerner)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Great Escape, Inc
Lines: 31

kudla@pawl.rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla) writes:
>>There are just no good games in the public domain, and I'm
>>too damned broke to lay out hundreds of bucks for games I'll play a
>>dozen times or so.

bob@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU.UUCP (robert s. richardson) responds:
>So don't lay out hundreds of bucks for games NEW, buy them used from
>some other poor soul who was dumb enough to pay retail in the first
>place.

The Copyright Code recognizes that copyrights infringe on constitutionally
guaranteed rights; it is intended to benefit the people by encouraging creative
work.  N.B. that assuring recompense for creative work is a *secondary*
objective, allowed in order to support the primary objective of encouraging
creative works for the enjoyment of the people.  I agree with the philosophy
behind the Code and thus I am against copyright infringement by the illegal
copying of software.  However, Mr. Richardson's suggestion that Mr. Kudla buy a
software package from its original purchaser rather than copying it illegaly
has little to do with even the secondary objective of the Code -- the software
author does not benefit in either case.  Why, then, go to the trouble of
finding an original purchaser willing to sell rather than just copying it?

I myself would go to the trouble, since my personal ethic proscribes illegal
copying.  Nevertheless, Mr. Richardson's counter, while a partial solution to
Mr. Kudla's capital problem, doesn't have much to do with the issue of
copyrights and the infringement thereof.
-- 
Be seeing you...
--Lang Zerner
langz@asylum.sf.ca.us   UUCP:bionet!asylum!langz   ARPA:langz@athena.mit.edu
"...and every morning we had to go and LICK the road clean with our TONGUES!"