How do you feel about old software licenses?

[Dog Cow]

No one in his mind is going to bother enforcing copyright law if both:

- the original copyright owner is no longer profiting from the product

- you, the potential infringer is not profiting from the product

Taking people to court costs money, and if no one's making any money off the program, then there' really no point.

Therefore, I "Download without thinking twice."

 

[Unknown_K]

The owner has to show losses to recover anything after you are found guilty. So without knowing who the owner is and not being able to prove losses because they item is no longer available for sale even if the owner wanted to sell it (code was lost) I can't see it going to court at all.

It takes somebody to press charges to even get a court case. For example if I walked over to a neighbor and beat the living hell out of them, while the act is illegal there is no prosecution unless the one getting beat down presses charges.

 

[register]

It takes somebody to press charges to even get a court case. For example if I walked over to a neighbor and beat the living hell out of them, while the act is illegal there is no prosecution unless the one getting beat down presses charges.

Which does not mean something like extortion would be legal, I assume ;-)

 

[porter]

Which does not mean something like extortion would be legal, I assume ;-)

Taxes are legal extortion.

 

[MacLover]

In my opinion, copyright law in its current state is atrocious (95 year terms?). I think the companies bribing our congresspeople through "donations" should be the ones getting in trouble, not the people who download 15 year old programs from some abandonware site. I believe copyright terms were done correctly the *first* time in 1790 (14-years with an optional extension) and the expansions (especially the DMCA) are atrocious abominations pushed by the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, and Disney.

Food for thought: Is Microsoft making anything from Office 4.2.1 for Mac?

BTW this is US copyright law