Jason Scott of Textfiles.com Wants Your AOL & Shovelware CDs

eldavojohn writes: You've probably got a spindle in your closet, or a drawer layered with them: the CD-ROM discs that were mailed to you or delivered with some hardware that you put away "just in case." Now, of course, the case for actually using them is laughable. Well, a certain eccentric individual named Jason Scott has a fever — and the only cure is more AOL CDs. But his sickness doesn't stop there, "I also want all the CD-ROMs made by Walnut Creek CD-ROM. I want every shovelware disc that came out in the entire breadth of the CD-ROM era. I want every shareware floppy, while we're talking. I want it all. The CD-ROM era is basically finite at this point. It's over. The time when we're going to use physical media as the primary transport for most data is done done done. Sure, there's going to be distributions and use of CD-ROMs for some time to come, but the time when it all came that way and when it was in most cases the only method of distribution in the history books, now. And there were a specific amount of CD-ROMs made. There are directories and listings of many that were manufactured. I want to find those. I want to image them, and I want to put them up. I'm looking for stacks of CD-ROMs now. Stacks and stacks. AOL CDs and driver CDs and Shareware CDs and even hand-burned CDs of stuff you downloaded way back when. This is the time to strike." Who knows? His madness may end up being appreciated by younger generations!

Comments

Re:I see the master plan

[hairyfeet]

Afraid not, a friend of my and myself actually tried contacting some of the old shareware companies to get permission to make the old shareware on a flash stick with a preconfigured DOSBox so kids could see what it was like in the early 90s.

What we found was 1.- A third of them are now owned by vultures that think some DOS card game should command the same prices as Doom 3 did at release, 2.- The rights are in limbo, because the companies have been split up and nobody knows who owned what (but nobody will give permission for fear somebody else might make a penny) and 3.- Companies that say "Oh we are gonna do something with that someday somewhere" and never do.

This is why I think copyrights should be a "use it or lose it" situation, where if a company does not sell their product in retail markets for x number of years they lose the rights which then go into public domain. This would also apply if they refuse to update the software so it can run on a modern system, otherwise they would just open a storefront on Amazon with a handful of discs for Windows 95 and try to argue "its for sale". Because as it is now more and more games are being lost, and with the "forever minus a single day" copyrights we have now programs written for first gen PCs and consoles won't be out of copyright until our fricking grandchildren are ready for retirement!

Re:I see the master plan

[Gr8Apes]

Afraid not, a friend of my and myself actually tried contacting some of the old shareware companies to get permission to make the old shareware on a flash stick with a preconfigured DOSBox so kids could see what it was like in the early 90s.

What we found was

This is why you follow the license on the shareware, and what you did was essentially allow the copyright holders to restrict you retroactively. Most shareware, IIRC, had something along the lines of distribution was fine, you had essentially a "trial" free version, and payment to unlock the entire thing. Abide by those rules, and you should be fine. IANAL....

This is why I think copyrights should be a "use it or lose it" situation, where if a company does not sell their product in retail markets for x number of years they lose the rights which then go into public domain.

I'll agree with this. Personally, I feel the following should happen

• 1) bring back the register the work with the Library of Congress portion within a year of publishing. This will ensure the work remains available even if the publisher goes away.
• 2) make the copyright term truly limited. Since the average life expectancy for men in the US is 74 and you cannot realistically recall most things until you're at least 10, that means the max would have to be less than 64 years to effectively be limited. I would argue 32, rounded down to 30, which is darn close to the original copyright terms. I also am fine with the original clause that required re-registering the copyright halfway through.
• 3) putting something in "the vault" (a la Disney) automatically puts it in the public domain. (the anti-Disney greedy money grubbing clause)
• 4) copyrights are non-transferrable and distribution agreements cannot extend beyond half the copyright term. (guarantees that the copyright creators maintain ownership)

Re:I see the master plan

[Anonymous Coward]

this isn't 'preserving history', it's perverting it.

How, exactly? Is the starcraft image somehow altered? You might want to go and look up what the word "perverting" means....