> >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
> 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??
Nope. But people who copied them 3 years ago can't be sued for it.
>
> But anyway, that wasn't my point... Here's a quote from The Copyright Book
> by William S. Strong:
> 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
Correct, but the software is covered by standard copyright law. That
makes ROMs a little different from other chips.
> entitled to protection at all, anything after that gets 5 years. Why else
> would Atari have encrypted cartridges on later models than the 2600?
Because Nintendo-style licensing agreements for consoles are
unenforceable in western countries.
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