Hi Sondra, how're things?
My NZTronix team's attempts to preserve early NZ computer games might make a nice example/case study. I have a paper on this in the August 2009 issue of Convergence (a special issue on digital preservation and cultural memory) which details some of the difficulties we had with copyright. There's a draft online at http://melanieswalwell.backpackit.com/pub/1661043 Probably most interesting were the cases where our inability to positively determine who owned historic copyrights (eg. when companies got wound up in the 80s) meant that such titles didn't get preserved. Basically, the paper trail goes cold early on. Even with the permission of the authors of such software titles (who may or may not still own copyright, and often aren't sure themselves), my collaborator Susan Corbett (IP lawyer at VUW) who attempted tracing the owners felt that this was not adequate. Early software titles such as those we worked with are effectively in a legal no man's land... There need to be some provisions so that if you've tried locating the owner and failed, you can still undertake preservation work. Susan's 2007 submission to the Select Committee is at http://www.nztronix.org.nz/Corbett_Digital_copyright_submission.pdf Melanie UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email. _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
