toebes@sas.UUCP (John Toebes) (10/27/86)
Warning: Controversial Subject matter.
First a little background:
I opened up the latest issue of AmigaWorld to find an advertisement for
a company in CA advertising HACK for sale. Claiming to be 'The Public Domain
Connection', they list 2 disks containing Hack:
001: Hack. Incredible graphics version.
002: Hack. Text version, for Connoisseurs.
Then one notes that in addition to breaking what used to be a single disk into
two parts, they also have the gall to charge $9.00 for each. I immediately
called them to let them know I was displeased with their tactics and to request
that they stop selling Hack. After two phone calls from them (one with an
offer to split profits - something my employer would really not like me to get
into) I still said no to them marketing it. I am informed that they are doing
so well they are putting in a full page ad next issue. Well they promised to
get back in touch with me and attempt some sort of deal but I have not heard
from them since.
A call to the several government agencies gets the response that the only
action is to take the matter to court. I call AmigagWorld to request that
they prevent him from advertising and making money on my (and other persons
work) but am informed that they would continue to allow any advertising unless
they recieve a court order showing that he is not allowed to sell Hack.
Other miscelaneous facts:
1) The version he is selling is 1.0.1E - one that still has bugs in it.
A newer version has been shipping for quitet a while.
2) Both versions of the game fit well on a single disk.
3) The going price for diskettes is $6 or $7.
4) I am still shown on the header (with My phone number) that displays
when Hack is run (who do you think will get the calls at 2:00 AM?)
5) Both AmigaWorld and this company admit that I am the person who
placed this program on the Amiga.
Why am I Ticked?
I put a great amount of effort into producing this program and making it right.
As a result it has been well enjoyed by many people. I made no attempt to
make money off my work and do not wish someone else to profit from my work.
They even advertised my work without consulting me. (If it isn't so
good, then why did they choose it as the feature programs?)
This company is not offering anything that isn't available elsewhere. In
fact, they are making the program LESS available by splitting it up. (A
price tag of $18.00 for what normally is $6 or $7)
AmigaWorld is supporting this type of behavior in its failure to prohibit
the advertising.
Other companies have asked me if they could market Hack (3 so far) and the
response has always been NO! I am not the only person involved, we all
owe a lot to Jay Fenalson, Andries Brouwer, and Don Kneller. It in not
within my rights (or anyone else's) to make money marketing a collective
work in the interest of bettering the avaialable software. Just because
this company failed to check first is no excuse.
But wait, you might say that Fred Fish and Amazing Computing are doing the
same thing. No, Fred is recognized as THE public domain source for the
Amiga; Amazing Computing (and the Amigan) offer the disks as a service to
their readers. This company is selling the disks for the sole purpose
of making a buck.
I am not against the idea of Public Domain software by any means (look at
what I have put out on the Amiga) but I do have an investment in time and
effort to protect.
What can be done:
In my case it looks as if there are only a few choices:
1) Sue them! This can get expansive for me and them (In their case, they
can use the money they are making off my work!)
2) Stop producing freely redistributable software. This is an extreme
solution, but with AmigaWorld working against me it is a reasonable one.
3) Ignore the situation and let them walk all over me and anyone else
who is working for the betterment of the Amiga.
4) Force them to stop selling it and make the situation so others do not
attempt to do the same.
I strongly lean toward solution #2 - unfortunately with my employment
restrictions it means no more software on the Amiga. Hence I request
assistance on solution #4.
If you are opposed to the actions of AmigaWorld and The Public Domain Connection
then LET THEM KNOW:
It is people like this that are working to destroy what Freeware/Shareware/
Public Domain is all about.
Direct all flames to:
Amiga Public Domain Connection (415) 644-3167
Box 117, 1400 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley CA 94709
AmigaWorld (603) 924-9471
80 Elm Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
Disclaimer: My employer has nothing to do with me.
--
John A. Toebes, VIII usenet:..mcnc!rti-sel!sas!toebes
USnail: 235 Trillingham Ln, Cary NC 27511 BBS:(919)471-6436nick@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Nick Flor) (11/01/86)
In article <212@sas.UUCP> toebes@sas.UUCP (John Toebes) writes: > >Why am I Ticked? >I put a great amount of effort into producing this program and making it right. >As a result it has been well enjoyed by many people. I made no attempt to >make money off my work and do not wish someone else to profit from my work. >They even advertised my work without consulting me. (If it isn't so >good, then why did they choose it as the feature programs?) > Actually, the person who should really be pissed is Andries Brouwer, the original author of the program. He must have put in at least the better part of a year working on the thing. I think you should send E-mail to him and make this fact known. He may be willing to take legal action. Regardless, what they are doing is illegal, and I hope someone puts them in their place. Gonna thump you... Nick -- + Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own, not necessarily my employers. / Nick V. Flor / ..hplabs!hp-sdd!nick / Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division * "What's going down in this world, you got no idea. Believe me." - The Comedian
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (11/02/86)
I've always wondered if it was possible to win a case such as this in court without the use of a lawyer. It seems to me that buying the product from them and then simply entering that as proof (especially the fact that your telephone and name are displayed without your permission!) would be good enough. Along the same lines, another way to combat such companies is to simply make it unprofitable for them to sell it... Perhaps we could all ban together and put in an add in AmigaWord along side the company's add saying 'Hack V... etc... Public Domain and FREE'. We would end up spending very little and the company quite a bit (on their adds). Knowing this could happen all along, but now seeing it first hand, I think I will start placing extremely explicit copyright notices on the programs I send over PD. BTW: It is always good to have some sort of copyright notice embedded in the code and displayed, but I get tired of programs which ALWAYS display the (C) notice... instead, it should only be displayed when you give it wrong options, or no options, or in the 'version' command if it has one. I get rather sick of Lattice's (C) notice's every time I compile something. BLINK too. This only applies to programs which do not have title screens. When you have a title screen you always put your (C) notice there (it's no extra hassel for the user). -Matt
jea@ur-cvsvax.UUCP (Joanne Albano) (11/03/86)
In article <8611020148.AA08257@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > Along the same lines, another way to combat such companies is to > simply make it unprofitable for them to sell it... Perhaps we could all > ban together and put in an add in AmigaWord along side the company's add > saying 'Hack V... etc... Public Domain and FREE'. I think Matt is on the right track here. Why not take a few contributions to get the ball rolling (ie post an address and Ill send some money) then include in the price of the Fish disks enough extra charge to cover adds in the prominent AMIGA magazines for freeware. Along different lines... THanks much Matt for the code it compiled happily. Two comments though: Do you know if POPCLI is incompatible with your shell? Whenever I try to run it I get an error message, something like cant open new cli and then I crash shortly thereafter. Too bad I find that program useful. Do you have any plans to implement ^Z and &, forground-background in your shell? Secondly, why do I run into problems when I merely try to cat a .login file that has a fatal error whereas I can edit it? Your documentation is quite clear and your shell is wonderful. Thanks for all your contributions to netland. rochester!ur-cvsvax!jea
wilkes@beatnix..UUCP (John Wilkes) (11/03/86)
In article <8611020148.AA08257@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > .... > Along the same lines, another way to combat such companies is to >simply make it unprofitable for them to sell it... Perhaps we could all >ban together and put in an add in AmigaWord along side the company's add >saying 'Hack V... etc... Public Domain and FREE'. We would end up spending >very little and the company quite a bit (on their adds). > > .... Count me in for contributing to the cost of such an ad. The people resposible for making money off of PD s/w should be hung by their eylids until they die from lack of sleep. How many others out there in net-land would contribute to bashing these folks? C'mon, let's do it! /John -- {wherever}!sun!elxsi!embos!wilkes
jhenry@randvax.UUCP (Jim Henry) (11/03/86)
I have expanded the distribution to include net.legal since I think this case represents something that many have anticipated for some time and will be of interest and concern to many people outside the amiga area. I was tempted but refrained from including other micro groups. Perhaps we can summarize what develops for those groups a little later. To recap for those who are seeing this for the first time: A company which redistributes PD software for profit is distributing an adaptation of "Hack" for the Amiga. The author of the adaptation, whose name and phone number appear in the software being distributed, has contacted the company and asked them to stop distributing the software. They offered to make a business arrangement but have not done so at this time and the author is, for a number of reasons, not really interested in making a deal. The author has contacted AmigaWorld and asked them to refuse advertisements which feature "Hack". They have said they will continue to accept ads until they are shown a court order stating that the company cannot sell the program. The author's posting asked for suggestions on available remedies and listed those he was considering. I am focusing my remarks on what his legal remedies might be. Some suggestions of other remedies have been made and may well be the best course of action. The first legal step would seem to be establishing that the author does have a legal ownership of the software. This probably means a proper copyright. If he does not have a proper copyright, he may be able to remedy the copyright. There are a number of good books that cover how to secure a valid copyright. I have read and would recommend Remer's Legal Care for Your Software from Nolo Press (about $20). I believe there are a number of pre-suit steps that can be taken to let someone know you are serious about defending your copyright. I also believe that it is correct that you must undertake the defense of your own copyright. I defer to the books or to someone more knowledgeable for details here. The real crux of the legal problem as I see it is that authors who wish to make a true PD contribution, a selfless donation of software to the computing community, have no economic support to use for defense of a copyright. Is a copyright that is not being used to protect an economic position worthless? The pat answer for prevention of profiteering on PD work has been copyright. Now we have an opportunity to see if it will work. How should one defend a copyright given that there is no source of money for the defense? The only legal solution I can think of is the use of small claims court. This minimizes, but does not eliminate, the economic hardship placed on the PD copyright holder. It also prevents the PD profiteer from gaining much advantage from his economically superior position, although he still has an advantage. Would anyone care to comment on whether copyright infringement could be brought to small claims court and how it might be most effectively persued? Disclaimers: These are personal opinions. They are in no way associated with my employer, the Rand Corp. I am not an attorney and nothing contained in this message should be considered as legal advice.
vanam@pttesac.UUCP (Marnix van Ammers) (11/04/86)
In article <212@sas.UUCP> toebes@sas.UUCP (John Toebes) writes: >Warning: Controversial Subject matter. > >First a little background: >I opened up the latest issue of AmigaWorld to find an advertisement for >a company in CA advertising HACK for sale. Claiming to be 'The Public Domain >Connection', they list 2 disks containing Hack: >001: Hack. Incredible graphics version. >002: Hack. Text version, for Connoisseurs. > [stuff] >They even advertised my work without consulting me. (If it isn't so >good, then why did they choose it as the feature programs?) > >This company is not offering anything that isn't available elsewhere. In >fact, they are making the program LESS available by splitting it up. (A >price tag of $18.00 for what normally is $6 or $7) > "They" is one person, Andrew Klineman (spelling may not be correct). After reading John's article I decided to call this company and complain. It seems to be run by one person, a senior at Berkeley. He assured me that he is not distributing Hack because John had objected and because his version wasn't current. I don't know this guy, but he sounded sincere in that he doesn't want to take anyone else's deserved profits. He'd like to distribute shareware and include notices showing to whom contributions should be sent. He didn't have access to USENET, so I tried to send John's article to his Amiga, but his modem was apparently not on auto answer and I didn't have the time to wait for him to look up new option settings. Anyway, he said he'd call John, so I hope John will straighten Andrew out on what he can and cannot distribute for profit, and under what conditions. After John's plea I had expected that this guy would have been deluged with complaints. I am quite dissapointed that I was the only one who had complained. We ought to stick together and help each other on matters like this!
ccplumb@watnot.UUCP (Colin Plumb) (11/06/86)
I'm not sure that a copyright needs to be protecting financial interests.
Couldn't it simply be that an author wants to have a say in what people do
with his/her work? The GNU system is protected by a copyright stipulation
which explicitly states that you are *NOT* allowed to make money selling GNU or
a derivative work. Yuo may only charge distribution costs, and may not
interfere in *any* way with what people do with it later. (This includes
forbidding liscencing agreements, copy protection, and (I *love* this) keeping
the source code private.)
I'm sure Richard Stallman looked into the pertinent legalities, and didn't find
any problems. (Or he'd do something else (maybe charging a penny for it).)
Would anyone with more background in the subject like to comment on this?
-Colin Plumb (ccplumb@watnot.UUCP)
"Bugs: This man page is confusing."mjwingrove@wateng.UUCP (Mike Wingrove) (11/06/86)
In article <12158@watnot.UUCP> ccplumb@watnot.UUCP (Colin Plumb) writes: >I'm not sure that a copyright needs to be protecting financial interests. Last night, here at U of W, there was a lecture given by a rather knowledgable lawyer on topics relating to software. Most of the lecture was related to an engineers liablility with respect to the use, and design of software, but he also spoke about software protection. During the software protection part of the talk I posed exactly the question under discussion here to him. He said "The copyright would still be valid even on a piece of freely distibutable software." Basically the copyright gives the owner the power of dictating who, and under what terms a piece of intellectual property (most commonly in written form. Canada's copyright laws don't specifically mention software YET.) can be reproduced/distributed. This means that if someone wants to copy a PD program, unless it contains a notice saying that anyone can copy it, then, theoretically, it would still be necessary to get the author's permission. Another way of stating this is that as well as a copyright notice, PD software should list the allowable terms of distribution, in addition to a copyright notice. Otherwise nobody is really alowed to copy/distribute it legally. This seemed to make good sense to me. Mike Wingrove C. C. N. G. Dept of Elec. Eng. U of Waterloo
glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee) (11/06/86)
In article <212@sas.UUCP> toebes@sas.UUCP (John Toebes) writes: >First a little background: >I opened up the latest issue of AmigaWorld to find an advertisement for >a company in CA advertising HACK for sale. Claiming to be 'The Public Domain >Connection', they list 2 disks containing Hack: >001: Hack. Incredible graphics version. >002: Hack. Text version, for Connoisseurs. > ... >What can be done: > >In my case it looks as if there are only a few choices: > 1) Sue them! This can get expansive for me and them (In their case, they >can use the money they are making off my work!) > 2) Stop producing freely redistributable software. This is an extreme >solution, but with AmigaWorld working against me it is a reasonable one. > 3) Ignore the situation and let them walk all over me and anyone else >who is working for the betterment of the Amiga. > 4) Force them to stop selling it and make the situation so others do not >attempt to do the same. > >I strongly lean toward solution #2 - unfortunately with my employment >restrictions it means no more software on the Amiga. Hence I request >assistance on solution #4. I hope that you do not choose #2, since that will be letting them destroy the wonderful exchanges that happen here. We should probably take precautions in the future in safeguarding our rights to our own work, without limiting distribution. I support the idea of a letter campaign, to both the company (probably a waste of time), as well as to the magazines. Write them as letters to the editor, see if they have the guts to publish it. If not, I would be willing to contribute to putting in an open letter as an ad, they can't refuse that! The only long term solution is probably to establish a distributor for the free software, with the proper spirit (no profit - or as Fred Fish puts it: low profit), and compete openly. [There is free enterprise for you!] -- -------------------------------------- Godfrey Lee Cognos Incorporated 3755 Riverside Drive Ottawa, Ontario CANADA K1G 3N3 (613) 738-1440 decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!glee --------------------------------------
net@uwmacc.UUCP (jeff kesselman) (11/07/86)
In article <383@ur-cvsvax.UUCP> jea@ur-cvsvax.UUCP (Joanne Albano) writes: >In article <8611020148.AA08257@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: >> >> Along the same lines, another way to combat such companies is to >> simply make it unprofitable for them to sell it... Perhaps we could all >> ban together and put in an add in AmigaWord along side the company's add >> saying 'Hack V... etc... Public Domain and FREE'. > >I think Matt is on the right track here. Why not take a few >contributions to get the ball rolling (ie post an address and >Ill send some money) then include in the price of the Fish disks >enough extra charge to cover adds in the prominent AMIGA magazines >for freeware. > I agree with the idea that we should run ads, and I'll send a few bucks as well as asking our local users group (CAMEO) to pitch in. I don't think Matt should give up on the legal route however. Since he has asked them nice not to do it, and as I assume the software is publicly redistributable, not public domain (there is a difference, if you don't want to allow people to rip you off like this LEAGALLY always include a copyright notice, with a declaration of intent that the work be freely redistributed on a not-for-profit basis.), he has REAL solid ground for a law suit. Since the case is so strong, and since copyright suits are triple damages (plus punative, I believe) I would be suprised if there weren't lawyers falling all over themselves to handle it for a cut of the settlement. I would strongly suggest contacting your local chapter of The American Society of Journalists and Authors, or a similar national writers group as they can give you lost of good advice about how to handle it and which lawyers to use. If you want to mail me your city, Matt, I can look up where the nearest ASJA chapter is and get back to you. Assholes like the ones in question should be taken to the cleaners, its the onlything they learn from! Jeff Kesselman ihnp4!uwvax!puff!uhura!captain or just uhura!captain for mailers who know about published names. Important Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I attempt to give leagal advice. I'm just the son of nationally syndicated journalists, and I've grown up hearing ALL about copyright law at the dinner table. (Thier column, if anyone cares, is called "The Business Computer" in most newspapers, we all have different last names in my family... its a long story...)