Re: Orphaned software and legal recourse

["Patricia M. Godfrey" pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

As a writer, in a small way, myself, I am certainly sensitive to issues
of intellectual property. On the other hand, there are significant
differences between a piece of software and a book. In any event, I was
not necessarily advocating "making [a piece of software] publicly
available, without the owner's consent, to any and all comers." I was
trying to think of some way of affording legal protection to users of
abandoned software (like, it appears, us). And there are varous aspects
of the situation that should be considered,

Software is a tool. But software publishers are allowed to offer it for
sale without any warranty of merchantability or any assurance that it
will do anything at all. (Read your average EULA.) Given that fact,
perhaps software copyrights should be set for a much shorter duration
than copyrights on static creative works.

Or perhaps, since the publishers insist we don't own but only lease the
program, certain principles of landlord-tenant law should apply. If I
rent an office or a dwelling and the roof leaks, the drains are clogged,
or the furnace doesn't work, and the landlord won't fix them, I can get
them fixed myself and send him the bill. An analogous law for software
might say that if a publisher intends to abandon a product, he must make
a good-faith effort to find a buyer who will maintain and support it. If
he cannot, he must release the registered users of the software from the
"no copying" and "no reverse engineering" terms of the license. I agree
that no one should make money on software they neither support nor
maintain. So users couldn't charge people for copies (except maybe for
the cost of a CD or some floppies, as shareware houses have always done).
But neither should developers be allowed to sit on code they're not
maintaining or supporting, like the proverbial dog in the manger.

In any event, I think the law should reflect what seems to be a fairly
general moral conviction (cf. Jordan's own statement), that if you CANNOT
buy a piece of software, you should be able to give a copy to a friend or
colleague, or put it on more than one PC if you have or work on a couple
of machines. And if a company has gone out of business or is no longer
making or supporting an app, why should it object to people's using it? A
free market should let consumers use an older tool if that's what they
want.

Patricia