At 11:15 AM 6/27/05 -0400, Andrew Stiller wrote: >If one of the >folks on this list, for example, were to take their original Finale 1.0 >diskette, stick it in liquid nitrogen to preserve it, and later sell it >to a museum, I would regard that as, quite literally, none of >MakeMusic's business, regardless of what the law might say. >If a (once again hypothetical) collector of antique software who had >not previously owned any version of Finale, wanted to add my copy of >FinMac 2.6.3 to their collection, I would donate it without a second's >thought. >I have no idea what the law says on these matters.
The issue of preservation of older software, especially games, is a big deal now. The US Copyright Office recently had a call for comments on 'abandonware' and what it means and how the current law applies. The definition of 'abandonware' is also in flux. Mostly it means software where the copyright owner is gone or the software is no longer supported, and in order to preserve it, various extra-legal measures need to be taken (including reverse-engineering and breaking protection schemes). The comment period was also looking for ideas about abandoned texts, music, etc., where someone wishing to use the material had taken every reasonable (I think that was the word) path to find a long-lost individual or corporate owner. It's a concern, even if not yet in Finale's case. (Is my Windows 2.2 version still supported?) Anyway, see this for the incredible crisis-in-progress, only to be made worse by hardware and software that needs to be cracked to preserve: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/issue/feature_memory.asp So look to the next few years for these issues to settle into a kind of common practice. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
