Yeah I believe that would fall under the "abandonware" category = e.g. no-one cares anymore or is making any substantial income off it.
I'm not an IP lawyer or knowledgeable on this topic, so I'm not sure if there is a legal precedence for this, but it is used on thousands of videogames, especially, and other media. http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=abandonware&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq= Imho in some cases people tread too carefully around copyright. Trashy web example: failblog.org recently did a post on 'record breaking fail' using the Guiness Book of World Records logo. GBWR sent a cease and desist style email, Failblog pixelated over the logo and removed a word, problem solved. Cheers, Luke On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 6:56 AM, Melanie Swalwell<[email protected]> wrote: > 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/ > _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
