Re: [stella] Piracy -- copyrights expired?

Subject: Re: [stella] Piracy -- copyrights expired?
From: "John Saeger" <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 18:05:49 -0800
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike St. Clair <mstclair@xxxxxxxxx>
To: stella@xxxxxxxxxxx <stella@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 1998 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: [stella] Piracy -- copyrights expired?


>
>Right again.  The attourney said that software copyright is not reduced or
>negated no matter what medium they are published in, and whether the roms
>are burned or fabricated with the software content is not relevant!
>Software on chips is just as protected as that on disk or any other media!


Except that the game cartridges are hardware, not software.  Software is
copied to a re-writeable medium for execution.  Hence the "soft" in
software.  This is not the case with the game cartridges. It may be that the
"firmware" in the game cartridges are considered to be software by law but I
don't know that.  All I know is that I ran across a passage in a book which
indicated that certain "designs in silicon" i.e. mask works, were granted a
shorter period of copyright protection than traditional software.  And
furthermore the roms in the game cartridges are often if not usually, in
mass-production at least,  programmed with a "mask." I know I must seem
brain-dead to wonder if the game cartridges fall into this category.

And, I realize that to some people, this is an emotional issue. The human
spirit, creativity and all.  And many people have definite opinions about
what they think the law SHOULD be.  I'm just trying to find out if anyone
knows what the law actually is.  I'm personally still not sure it's really
so clear.  I know IBM sued the clone makers in the early days for copying
roms, but it was within 5 years.  I don't know of anyone doing anything
similar over roms this long after the fact.  I see these rom images all over
the place.  If it was really illegal, why doesn't anyone do anything about
it?  Activision could certainly afford to do something.  I can't help but
think that MAYBE the conventional wisdom is wrong.  Maybe nothing CAN be
done.  Maybe it's legal.  I don't know.  I'm just trying to understand.  I'm
not trying to promote or "rationalize" piracy.

Thanks,

John Saeger


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