Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!gmreise
From: gmreise@cs.vu.nl (Reisenstadt G M)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: PIRACY WARNING???
Keywords: Illegal, Pirate
Message-ID: <6891@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 8 Jun 90 11:15:24 GMT
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Lines: 58


PIRACY WARNING???

It Just Might Be Possible (very careful, don't you think?) that there
are some pirated copies around on xanth.cs.odu.edu of the

Commercial Program "SoundTracker v1.0"  !!!
               or: "Ultimate SoundTracker"

(These are: SoundTracker25.LZH, NoiseTracker10.LZH & NoiseTracker12.LZH)

SoundTracker 1.0 was a program by Karsten Obarski which was very welcome
in the Cracker world to make the music for demos/intros.
But: it was very hard to work with the program, so: some crew (I believe
it was DOC Dr. Mabuse Orgasm Crackings (...I know what you are thinking...)
made an updated version, and some other crew made again a few updates..

The reason why I bring this up is an answer to a reader's letter in the
german magazine "Amiga Special" which
states that all the rights remain with the original copyright owner.
It does not mention any law section, or something. Since I like xanth
I thought I should bring this up, because I don't want it shut down or
something...

Question: IF, just IF there is NO ORIGINAL CODE in there, I mean no dis-
          assemble, patch/update, re-assemble tricks but built from the
          ground on up, are they legit?
          And I am not talking of look-and-feel, thats-my-tm, thats-my
          fileformat etc. but thats-my-copyright! 

Question: So, IF it is a patched version, and you own ST 1.0 (I don't)
          is it then legal to own a copy?
          [This goes farther than it looks: am i allowed to own a trainer
          unprotected copy of a original game i own???]

Maybe some other net.Marco ;-) may know this for the US law, but since there
is some international aspect here (ST 1.0 = German program) it might
be more complex. 

With a little luck, I just found in M&T's AMIGA (German) in an Ad the
"Ultimate SoundTracker", but it did not mention the software company
that owns the rights to it. The company was Atlantis, Postfach 1141,
Huerth, FRG.

Advice: DON'T DESTROY ANY #?Tracker YOU HAVE UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED.
        YOU MAY NEVER GET IT BACK, and you can destroy it at any time
        later when you are sure it is illegal...

If you are paranoid, keep em in a place you can destroy them easily, from
what I have seen lately on the net this "Secret Service" (sounds like coming
from a James Bond movie) is like a Gestapo tapping into all kind of things
and have no consideration for Joe User, who dont even know a commercial
SoundTracker exists...

Greetings,
Marco Niese

E-Mail: gmreise@cs.vu.nl   Put: "TO BMR" in subj. line please!