Dave wrote:
art wrote:
A friend of mine wants to try out the AO program by Beazely.
The program is not in the commercial market now as it is not being
sold
He wants to make a copy of my disc to try something out that requires
AO
I suppose since it is not for sale which probably means copyrights are
now defunct
I don't see any reason to not acceed to his request.
Ofcourse so few people pay for computor programs these days but I like
to do things right,

Why not ask? If the author is not selling it, then he might well be
quite happy for you to distribute a copy.

after all if a patent is abandoned then it is a free for all since
the advance of science cannot be stopped and it becomes freeware

I don't think the copyright expires on a bit of software like this. I
belive there is a limit on books, but that is about 30 years or so -
quite a long while anyway. Should software be the same, then I doubt the
copyright has expired on any of it.

A copyright doesn't go "defunct" because the author ceases selling the
copyrighted material. In fact, the author doesn't need to sell the
material at all in the first place, or be alive for that matter, for the
copyright to be in effect. And the copyright exists as soon as the
material is created. Anyone truly interested in learning what the (U.S.)
rules really are can find ample information at http://uspto.gov. I do
realize, however, that some people would rather make up imaginary rules
to justify what they want to do anyway.

I'm happy to say that a lot of people do pay for software these days.
It's not uncommon for me to get a check from an EZNEC user with a
request to send a program to a friend. It's refreshing and heartening to
see that most people are honest, and see the fairness of paying for
someone else's labor.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL