Subject: Re: [stella] Piracy -- copyrights expired? From: "John Saeger" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 08:41:09 -0800 |
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Cracknell <crackers@xxxxxxxx> To: stella@xxxxxxxxxxx <stella@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 9:41 PM Subject: Re: [stella] Piracy -- copyrights expired? >In article <34B97C6E.F331133B@xxxxxxxx>, you wrote: >>John Saeger wrote: >>> >>> Maybe the copyrights on the original 2600 game cartridges have expired by >>> now. The original games weren't software, they were game cartridges >> >>Depends... Have any of the authors been dead 75 years yet? >~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ ^~ (---snip---) >The statute of limitation on copyright violation is 3 years. If a work is >pirated and not dicovered for 3 years or the copyright owner takes no >legal actions to stop it within that time , then there is nothing the >copyright owner can do about it (---snip---) Now this is really interesting. The .bin files have been available on the net for at least 3 years by now. So their free now right?? But anyway, that wasn't my point... Here's a quote from The Copyright Book by William S. Strong: By an amendment to the Copyright Act in 1984, Congress granted a truncated form of copyright protection to the masks, so called, that are used to create semiconductor chips. It was felt that these masks, being essentially unitarian works, would not receive protection without specific statutory language. A mask lies somewhere between a design and a stencil, or perhaps more accurately it is both. In it the intricate circuitry of a semiconductor chip is cut, and through it laser light etches the circuitry design on the chip's silicon. Because of its inherently unitarian character, Congress has granted mask works a shorter term of protection and a narrower scope of rights than other works. And interestingly, Congress has specifically authorized anyone to use the technology contained in a mask work, provided he obtains it by reverse entineering and does not merely copy the mask. (end of quote) Anyway, the labels, documentation, packaging etc. are protected by standard copyright law, but the silicon chips that are inside the game cartridges may be in a different category. Anything created prior to 1984 may not be entitled to protection at all, anything after that gets 5 years. Why else would Atari have encrypted cartridges on later models than the 2600? (I forget if it was the 5200 or the 7800) To make them more difficult to reverse engineer. My guess is they knew that they were unprotectable. John Saeger -- Stella list is Administered by krishna@xxxxxxxxxxxx <Glenn Saunders> Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/stella.html +-shameless plugs-------------------------------------------------------+ | Stella documentary at http://www.primenet.com/~krishna | | Nick's VCS links via http://www.primenet.com/~nickb/atariprg.htm | | Write the best game, win framed autographs of famous Atari alumni!! | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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