delton@pro-carolina.cts.com (Don Elton) (02/14/89)
This is an update to an earlier notice concerning the two companies
(Software-To-Go & Megatronics) that were selling copies of my copyrighted Talk
is Cheap software program without permission or license. Upon calling the
Software-To-Go company of Abilene Texas they stated that they were unaware
that the program was copyrighted and that they would pull it off the shelves.
A followup anonymous call two weeks later confirmed that they were no longer
selling the product.
I called up Megatronics and the sales lady said that they were indeed
including Talk is Cheap with their modems and that the software was public
domain. I asked if they were aware that the program was copyrighted and asked
if they had permission to distribute it and I was assured that they had a
letter from the author of the program giving them permission. This was a
surprise to me since I was the author and there was no letter. In talking to
a higher up in the company I was told that the program was public domain and
that I had no claim to it and that the copyright notice didn't matter at all
since "All public domain programs are copyrighted" and that the shareware
notice gave them the right to sell and/or distribute the program as they saw
fit. They said they would think over licensing the program and would call me
back. Well, they never called back so I called them back today. They said
that they were still selling the program with their modems and said they had
the right to do so because the program was public domain and because of the
shareware notice (note that they are shipping a version of TIC from before it
went commercial) they had every right to do so but that if I chose, they would
stop distributing the program. I said that many people including my lawyer
wanted me to sue them over this to prove the contrary and that I still hadn't
made up my mind on the issue but any further sales of the program would
certainly make the decision easier. I'll have someone call back in a couple
of weeks I suppose to see if they're still selling the program.
I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who gets TIC from these or other folks
without my printed documentation. There are a few legitimate resellers out
there so don't necessarily assume that I'm being ripped off if you see the
product coming from a store or something but I'd like to hear about it just
the same as there will probably be cases of real-life thieves involved with
this software as well. Shareware and software development is risky enough as
it is without people ripping me off and making more money off my years of work
than I have with no more effort than copying disks so I'd advise anyone
thinking of producing a shareware product to think long and hard about it
before giving these guys something to do.
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