@Minuous

Quote:

And last time I checked Boing Bags are freeware, these were NEVER sold,

Th fact that something is available free of charge does not means that the IP/copyright holder has abandonned his rights and that you have a license to redistribute it. In fact I'm pretty sure that this the first line or so of the readme in the BoingBag something like "[...] you are granted the right to use, copy for your own use this package, but you don't have the permission to redistribute or make available this package in any electronicaly form[...]".

Again Amikit is rather focusing on the 3.9 roms availability not the BB and I doubt Cloanto receive any money for any sale of OS 3.9 CD thus I don't see them giving a cent to Amikit to defend OS 3.9...

_________________
AOS 4.1 : I dream it, Hyperion did it !
Now dreaming AOS 4.2...
Thank you to all devs involved for this great job !

@Minuous

WELCOME JAMES JACOBS! I just wonder why you haven't explain your position to public yet - as you promised.

Quote:

What AmiKit doesn't mention here is that he is getting financial kickbacks from Cloanto for each copy of Amiga Forever they can flog off.

Yes, this is true and it is one more argument against your: "I don't hurt anyone"

Quote:

I should also point out that I have in the past submitted bug reports re. AmiKit, I was even going to write a decent tutorial on how to work around the bugs at his behest since apparently he couldn't be bothered to (a) write one or (b) fix the bugs.

I react on EVERY report but I am afraid I have never got any bugreport from you. Help is always welcome. Btw. there is also the AmiKit forum where you can post bugreports!
But anyway James, this is not the discussion about AmiKit.

Quote:

And last time I checked Boing Bags are freeware, these were NEVER sold, so why would there be any problem with them? Would he prefer that people be stuck with buggy OS versions, that way the AmiKit bugs could be blamed on the OS?

why? Simply, freeware doesn't mean YOU can distribute the archive anywhere you want. For the very same reason I did not include them with AmiKit package. Always depends on licence that is provided with such a "freeware". Have you read it?

Last edited by AmiKit on 05-Sep-2006 at 09:43 AM.
Last edited by AmiKit on 05-Sep-2006 at 09:11 AM.

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Modern Retro Experience

@DarkGlobe

Quote:

I'm not sure I am a legal owner of OS3.9

uh uh?

Quote:

Now, it will take me at LEAST 2 hours to retrieve my A500, find an old boot disk, boot it up, extract the ROM and copy it back to disk for use elsewhere. Assuming the A500 boots still, it hasn't been powered up in over a decade. Alternatively, I can find a helpful site like this one James Jacobs runs (which you've not provided a link to) and download the ROM, which I already own, in 2 minutes. Saving 2 hours would be very helpful. As it happened, I couldn't find the A500 ROM on the net, lots of dead links, very annoying. Got it off a mate in the end. Still quicker the digging around in my loft.

Don't get me wrong or don't take it personally please but under such logic it is betterand easier to steal whatever you want rather than to earn money for it.

While you're probably OK if you're the owner of the hardware but let me ask you the same question as I asked James Jacobs (alias Minuous). If you put the ROM file on your website, how you can ensure it's downloaded by the "right" people who have thier A500 in the loft? You can't.

Quote:

I also made the point that the A500 ROM should probably be made available free to all because it helps people run UAE, classic Amiga software and may help increase the size of the Amiga community.

Listen, I would be also happy if the ROMs (or at least A500 ROM) are freely distributable. I am on your side. No doubt it would attract more people to community. Let's start the discussion about it, let's persuade the owner of this ROM, etc. etc. No, James Jacobs decided to distribute it immediately.

Quote:

James Jacobs is breakig the law, but the law is black & white whereas reality consists of infinite shades of grey which is how come one can break or bend the odd law without being 'wrong' & burning in hell. Breaking the law is not always a bad thing, some laws are stupid. You adhere fully to every law? You never break a speed limit, you never smoked a little dope, you never drank until you were 18, Every MP3 you own is legal, never obtained a pirate video or took a short cut across private land?

yeah, I smoke Marihuana and I can honestly say "I don't hurt anyone", I hope
What bother me is that James Jacobs IS hurting people who still sell AmigaOS. You're right, law is black & white but remember there are always people behind the laws. And like I told to James this is about people and respect to their rights. Laws are the last possibility to force people to respect the rights of others. But James did not even bother to ask someone if he could redistribute such a software.

Last edited by AmiKit on 05-Sep-2006 at 09:37 AM.

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Modern Retro Experience

@thread

I really don't like these sorts of threads appearing on AmigaWorld as they are potentially libelious and contain a smearing/s of character/s, something most definitely not permissible on AW.net. I would ask that you all begin to round up your conclusions as the thread will be locked in a day or two.

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@AmiKit

"James Jacobs IS hurting people"

Possible. But, to use and comparitive example, the record industry likes to claim that:-

1 downloaded MP3 = 1 lost sale = -£3

They use this equation to calculate their alleged 'losses' due to piracy, well, they would wouldn't they? They have every reason to inflate their actual losses.

People who actually do this downloading will frequently say something like this:-

"Well hang on a minute, most of the MP3s, I've downloaded were just throwaway rubish I would never have actually paid for, AND I've discovered a good few new bands whose CDs I've bought since I started downloading."

It is probably impossible to work out exactly what the real effect on the record industry due to piracy actually is, the only certainty is that 1 downloaded MP3 does NOT equal 1 lost sale, probably nowhere near that amount. The only people that would dispute this are the record industry themselves.

Distributing ROMs is in the same boat, I would suspect that a substantial majority of people who download A500 ROMs are either in a similar boat to me and doing so for convenience OR they are people dipping their toes into the Amiga with UAE who in most cases probably don't know the Cloanto package exists or what it contains and probably wouldn't order it anyway.

Furthermore, there are probably people around who have pirated the ROMs but who then discover Amiga Forever and purchase that for the added conveniene of the pre-configured package. Legal ROMs being a secondary bonus. I know this because *I* nearly bought Amiga Forever once to overcome my frustrations getting UAE working properly (I didn't because I have working hardware so ultimately don't care enough about UAE).

Fact: Alhough freely available commercial ROMs may cost some sales, the rate will be nothing like 1 sale per downloaded ROM lost.

Fact: Some people will spend money inside the Amiga community, perhaps on Amiga Forever, having initially started with a pirate ROM.

It is not possible to work out exactly the NET cost or benefit to the Amiga community as a whole of James' actions. It is merely my belief that overall, he is probably doing more good than harm especially when you do throw in his entirely legitimate content and past efforts.

He should stop distributing OS3.9 though, there's no justification for that. Distributing legacy stuff which helps casual users & curious types is one thing, distributing the latest version of the OS, only of use to current Amiga users who should be the ones paying for it, is highly likely to cause a number of lost sales.

PS. I don't know whether I purchased OS3.9 or not so I have no idea what my entitlement to it is likely to be. I currently run 3.1 and I know I own and used to run 3.5.

@Bodie_CI5

Quote:

I really don't like these sorts of threads appearing on AmigaWorld as they are potentially libelious and contain a smearing/s of character/s, something most definitely not permissible on AW.net. I would ask that you all begin to round up your conclusions as the thread will be locked in a day or two.

I agree Bodie_CI5, I think I won't persuade James to remove the illegal content anyway. All I ask, before you close the thread, is to wait for the post where James Jacobs (alias Minuous) explains his position, as he promised me. Thanks.

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Modern Retro Experience

Jacobs is harming the Amiga community, not only by stealing, but also by giving the rest of us a bad name.

I don't think that a criminal like Jacobs has a right to privacy while he commits his crimes - there's no good reason to keep the contents of his emails private. The man is a thief.

@AmiKit

That is what I will wait for, which is why I asked for concluding comments all round.

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@Thread

Quote:

tomazkid wrote: Making the thread public again, removed private email transcripts. As long as we don't have a confirmation from James Jacobs that it is ok to make it public, it is not ok to publish transcripts.

LOL!

There seems to be more popular Thread outrage at the violation of James Jacobs' EMail IP than about the IP he is pirating. And yet no one has asked: by quoting James' EMail is it hurting the Amiga Community?

Or is it just okay to violate the IP rights of people you just don't like?

Or is it okay to violate the IP of folks that aren't doing what you want?

Or is it okay to steal IP if you just want it badly enough?

Maybe folks just want any vague, hypocritical rationalization they can find
to try to justify their self serving distortion of what IP rights & copyrights
are?

If an IP rights holder simply chose to destroy their IP properties (that you
craved so much), wouldn't it be their right to do so?

PJS

@pjs

IP law and copyrights, and pretty much every law, are not always a good or beneficial thing for society.

Yes, if Amiga inc decided to destroy he ROMs so that they may never be used again, that would be their right.

But if James still hosted them after their destruction, he'd still be helping the Amiga community, despite breaking the law. And that's what this thread was supposed to be about.

What's right, just, fair and/or sensible in society is regularly at odds with what's technically legal because of the black, the white and the grey.

@AmiKit

Personally, and IMHO, either mail this to Amiga Inc, and / or Cloanto if you think Amiga Inc isn't going to do something about this. Leave it at that and move on.

And with that said, if the legal owners won't why should we care ? People who pirated the roms would most likely pirate Amiga Forever as wel.

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~
Everything you say will be misquoted and used against you..
~

@AmiKit
I'm sorry it took so long to respond. Some problems with our coming baby.

Quote:

@walterQuote: ...he presents the most most reasonable explanation and justification of the abandonware concept... Really? What concept you mean exactly? "Take whatever you think it's abandoned?"

I no longer have his text, because AW rightly does enforce their ToS , but he
seemed to determine "abandonment" based on restricted availability, and, more
importantly to him, lack of active development. From that and some of his other
remarks, I think he values creative input into the product and support for users
over simple purchase of the rights, in determining "ownership." It's probably a
minority opinion (more of a hacker (or perhaps community-focused?) view), but
certainly one worth expressing.

Of course, I have reservations: it's hard for me to see OS 3.9 as abandoned
(although it does fit my construction of his criteria). He also has a harsh
view of Cloanto. None of this stuff is easy to work out.

Quote:

Quote: [shortening my own blather] ...situation where the legalities have become pointless... ...that he must make ...choices based on ...values. Can laws (or even rights) always properly guide us in our decisions? Quote: There's nothing wrong on common sense. But don't you think it is AT LEAST nice to ask the owner: "Can I take please". There's absolutely no law needed! Like I said, law is the last possibility to enforce the respect if the man isn't able to do this himself.

This is confused and tangential. It's not about politeness or respect, it's about
deciding to contravene a rule (law) to try to benefit your community. Maybe it's
about what SHOULD be respected. BTW, law never enforces respect: it enforces
behavior, generally, and legitimate rights, if you're really lucky.

Quote:

Quote: I think, at least, that you should reread his arguments, and try to come up with a counterargument as principled and unemotional as his. Uh? Is this addressed to me or James

To you. You put words in other poster's mouths, there is an angry, aggrieved
tone to many of your responses, and, under the cover of attempted persuasion
you repeat arbitrary, inflexible positions without showing us their basis.
Perhaps you will provoke James to an equally angry response, but right now
he appears more civilized and reasonable than you. He is helping me, if not
the community, by getting me to think about these things. Thanks James!

(Also tip of the hat to DarkGlobe, bigsnyder and others who've made better
points here than me)

@walter

Quote:

You put words in other poster's mouths, there is an angry, aggrieved tone to many of your responses, and, under the cover of attempted persuasion you repeat arbitrary, inflexible positions without showing us their basis. Perhaps you will provoke James to an equally angry response, but right now he appears more civilized and reasonable than you. He is helping me, if not the community, by getting me to think about these things. Thanks James!

man, this is unbelievable. I tried to be unemotional because I know this approach isn't effective. Are you sure you read MY arguments? As you probably remember it was NOT ME me who called Clanto "vile leech sucking the blood of the Amiga community by selling a free emulator" and this, certainly, is NOT civilized and reasonable argument to excuse the theft.

_________________
Modern Retro Experience

"vile leech sucking the blood of the Amiga community by selling a free emulator" and this, certainly, is NOT civilized and reasonable argument to excuse the theft."

"The man is a thief."

Last time I checked, theft requires a "taking away", copying is certainly not "theft" by any reasonable definition. A common but nonetheless inexcusable error. If I take your car, you are deprived of the use of the car; this is clearly the main reason it is immoral and that people get upset about it. If I have a car but you still have yours then there is no reason to get upset about it except if you want to be the only one with a car and force everyone else to walk...!?

I'm not sure what the fascination with Cloanto is? AFAIK they have not done anything on the Amiga since the mid-90s. No Amiga software is sold at their site. They don't seem to be supporting any of their Amiga software anymore. "Amiga Forever" is a package for Windows. It is based on WinUAE which is a free emulator. They are sitting back making a profit out of Toni Wilen's hard work. They are no more of an Amiga developer than countless other companies that have ditched the Amiga. Eg. Microsoft used to write Amiga software at one point, according to this logic they are an Amiga developer and therefore we should be sending buckets of cash their way.

"I am afraid I have never got any bugreport from you."

I'm sure you must still have the email somewhere, you seem to have all the other ones...It would have been sent with my old email account though, it was a while back...Why not put your efforts into improving your software, like I do, rather than starting these crap threads?

"If you put the ROM file on your website, how you can ensure it's downloaded by the "right" people who have thier A500 in the loft? You can't."

By the same token you cannot ensure that the downloaders are *not* entitled to it. Better to give people the benefit of the doubt.

"Simply, freeware doesn't mean YOU can distribute the archive anywhere you want."

Isn't that the very definition of freeware!? Freely distributable software!? By your definition you should not be distributing any freeware as part of AmiKit. Those Aminet mirrors must all be bad too.

"Listen, I would be also happy if the ROMs (or at least A500 ROM) are freely distributable. I am on your side. No doubt it would attract more people to community. Let's start the discussion about it, let's persuade the owner of this ROM, etc. etc."

Why have you not done that then, rather than hassling people? It would be an unambiguous benefit to the Amiga community. I always find it best to act in a positive rather than negative way, I don't hassle people about what is on their site, if I have a problem with a site there are thousands of other sites I can go to. I've also found that asking such companies to help the community they are squeezing the blood out of is pointless, if they gave a damn they would have done it already.

"Yeah, I smoke Marihuana and I can honestly say "I don't hurt anyone", I hope."

But you are breaking the law, for which you seem to have such mindless respect. You can't have it both ways. Either you are a mindless slave of the government or you are able to think independently and make your own moral choices. There are many things which are immoral but legal; similarly there are also things which are moral but illegal. I could compare you with a murderer like you did with me, but I won't. But I should point out that you could be giving that money to Cloanto instead, so by your logic you are hurting Cloanto by doing this.

BIOS ROMs for every platform are already widely available. I don't see what is so different about Amiga ROMs, I've never had any 3DO users hassle me about 3DO BIOS etc. Most manufacturers don't have a problem with it.

"What's right, just, fair and/or sensible in society is regularly at odds with what's technically legal because of the black, the white and the grey."

Exactly. Eg. there have been bad laws throughout history. Politicians are not God, they make mistakes, and they are easily corrupted. Eg. in Germany there were laws against such Jews, gypsies, etc. Or look at the situation in China, they have killed 80 million of their own people, etc. Other governments steal children away from their families. I could give many more examples but I think you see my point.

"it's hard for me to see OS 3.9 as abandoned"

Well, development ceased years ago (after BB2), they stopped manufacturing them about the same time, they stopped supporting it shortly after, it was withdrawn by H&P due to copyright/licensing issues, and was never transferred to Alinea. It seems very clear that it has indeed been abandoned. The developers of OS3.9, being salaried programmers, are certainly not likely to see any more money no matter how many OS3.9 are sold. Anyway I'm not providing the full package, it's just a bare minimal install, and the main reason it's been provided is that it is a hassle to install OS3.9 under UAE due to various well-documented issues. OS3.9 is no longer available except as remaindered stock. As most of my software requires OS3.5/3.9 to run this means an artificially restricted platform size if it is unavailable.

"WELCOME JAMES JACOBS! I just wonder why you haven't explain your position to public yet - as you promised."

I've made posts in this thread before. I haven't bothered to explain the entire reasoning as it should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it and takes a medium- to long-term view.

Current copyright law IIRC gives a period of protection of approx. 95 years. This means the earliest Amiga stuff would start to be preservable in the year 2080. How likely is it that any Amiga disks will be readable by that time? Or that there will be any substantial number of functioning machines? Or that anyone will be around with the hardware, interest and knowledge of how to dump them? Have you not heard of "bit rot"? Even the older ICs are beginning to crumble, these things were not really made with the intention of being extremely long lasting. Also the fact that a lot more software and hardware, in the intervening 74 years until that date, will be thrown out, especially if it is not really usable for anything until 2080.

So the year 2080 finally comes around, and while preservation would then be legal it would not be possible. This is assuming they haven't retrospectively lengthened the term of copyright in the meantime, which they have repeatedly done. In fact every time Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain, the term of copyright is retrospectively extended, this has been well-documented behaviour.

By the way this doesn't just apply to the Amiga, of course, it would ALL be lost: from every platform. All kinds of things are being lost. Think about the amount of dollars spent developing that software, and the amount of man-hours of work. All lost because of some pathetic Mickey Mouse law.

So the only feasible solution is to do the preservation NOW, whilst we still have the necessary hardware and software and knowledge. Otherwise not only WON'T it be done, it simply CAN'T be done. Preservation cannot be done effectively without mass distribution; if it's just sitting on one computer and unavailable, that will not suffice, due to bit-rot, limited human lifespan, natural disasters, etc. Thus, initiatives like CAPSDI, or whatever it is called now.

Already there is a massive amount of sotftware that has been lost forever. It's gone, it ain't coming back. Due to the existence of immoral laws which are not even enforced. The stuff that *has* been preserved has been preserved by courageous individuals who get little thanks, rather being hassled by people who are, at best, misguided. Often the original developers do not even have copies anymore. Eg. Polarware, even though they have given permission for everything to be freely distributed, they don't have copies of some of their titles, and neither does anyone else. They're gone forever.

If there had been copyright in ancient times then we would now have virtually no ancient documents, as the vast majority of the texts we have were copied from older texts before disintegration occurred. Surely no one will say that historical texts etc. are not worth preserving? Also eg. in the TV field, the early Doctor Who episodes have been lost because the BBC wiped the tapes. Now the BBC has been begging people to send them their "illegal" home recordings of them for preservation purposes. A hundred years from now, are the archaeologists going to be cursing people for having preserved this stuff at the time? Of course not, they will be angrier about the people who tried to stop such activity. I don't see how historical software is any different. It's also necessary to have the widest range of software available for the compatibility testing of emulators, otherwise such emulators are inaccurate if they can't be adequately tested. Similarly, older musical recordings, books, etc. are in danger of extinction if they are not preserved. I want these things to be available to my children and grandchildren (and everyone else's)., for historical, informative and entertainment value. These things don't preserve themselves. The manufacturers themselves generally don't preserve them. Governments don't preserve them; certainly not with regard to software. No one preserves them except the "criminal" abandonware community.

I could go on, but I think those who have not seen the point yet will probably never see the point.

@Minuous

Bravo!

And I take back my objection to your OS3.9 hosting. I didn't realise it was withdrawn for, again, stupid licensing issues.

I agree 100% with everything you say, including (unfortunately) your very last line.

@Minuous

just some brief arguments:
Quote:

"Yeah, I smoke Marihuana and I can honestly say "I don't hurt anyone", I hope." But you are breaking the law, for which you seem to have such mindless respect.

Let me correct your knowledge but "smoking" itself is not prohibited, at least not in my country, so please don't accuse me of breaking the law. I believe we are discusing you and your behaviour, not mine.

Next, while I completely agree with you regarding the preservation, you failed to explain your illegal distribution of copyrighted material with this "preservation" incentive. Preservation does not automaticly mean distibution.

You are still talking about preservation, well... what's the point of preserving AmigaOS3.9 if this product is still available to buy from various Amiga dealers? And distributing such a software without a licence is clear piracy!

If you're really so unselfish as you told me, why you don't buy Amiga Inc with all their patents and software and whatsoever and make it freeware then? You would be a hero James.

_________________
Modern Retro Experience

The laws are not just against "possession", but against "use or possession". Unless where you live has completely different narcotics laws to the rest of the world which I doubt.

"I believe we are discusing you and your behaviour, not mine."

You are being a hypocrit, so it is entirely relevant.

"Preservation does not automaticly mean distibution."

By any practical standard it does, as previously explained.

"If you're really so unselfish as you told me, why you don't buy Amiga Inc with all their patents and software and whatsoever and make it freeware then?"

If I had the money I probably would. But remember I'm not the one trying to make people feel guilty and pay a "donation" to me for something that is just a collection of other people's hard work?

Last edited by Minuous on 06-Sep-2006 at 01:57 AM.

@Minuous

excellent argumentation James, really civilized. What should I expect from a person like you. I am outta here.

Last edited by AmiKit on 06-Sep-2006 at 01:55 AM.
Last edited by AmiKit on 06-Sep-2006 at 01:52 AM.

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Modern Retro Experience

I guess I just don't get it.
Whether or not you think you're doing someone a favor is irrelevant.
If it's not your IP, then it's not yours to distribute.

If you want to distribute someone elses IP, you get their permission first,
or you don't distribute it.

Calling it a "service to the community" has nothing to do with the real issue.

But I guess I'mm too simple minded to understand the "real issues".

LyleHaze

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question=(2b||!(2b))

And with that, this thread is being locked. Ample discussion/debate has been provided, people rightly, or wrongly, I won't be the judge of that, have remained insistent in their points of view but nothing fruitful has been gouged out. The interested parties can take this up outside of this forum and beware, my tolerance levels for such threads are very low, they are lower now. On top of that, whether it be a related thread or not, posting private exchanges of Private Mail of e-mail is expressly forbidden on this site, without EXPLICIT APPROVAL from the other party. We will be highly tough on those who choose to circumvent this prerequisite.. Minuous, I have decided to rescind the Abuse Report as this whole thread is a quagmire from beginning to finish, but it does not alter the fact that the linking of pirate websites, whether right or wrong, is expressly forbidden on AmigaWorld.

Take heed people, I will NOT TOLERATE such threads on AmigaWorld anymore. If there is a concern, please take it up via the proper channels, ie. Amiga Inc. or any other channel you deem suitable for a resolution to the problem at hand; leave this site out of it.

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