anyone scans/PDFs of the DEC (VMS) "grey wall" ?

[Dan Gahlinger]

Of course your comments are all US-based.
I'm in Canada, and thankfully things are still a bit different here.

We're even allowed to copy things - as long as they're for personal use, that's a major difference.

Hopefully, some day, govt's will realize making things too draconian will only make it worse and drive everyone underground.

Dan.
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> Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 11:46:49 -0700
> From: eric at brouhaha.com
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: RE: anyone scans/PDFs of the DEC (VMS) "grey wall" ?
> 
> Dan wrote:
>> copyrights dont last forever. stuff from the 70s should be public domain
>> by now.
> 
> Sorry, Dan, but that's very nearly as wrong about copyright as it is
> possible to be.
> 
> In the US, for all practical purposes, copyrights on anything created after
> 1922 do last forever.  The official story is that they last for the life
> of the author plus 70 years [*], but in practice every few years Disney
> et al. get Congress to pass a new law to extend it further.
> 
> There's also a ratcheting up affect.  The copyright interest in the
> US say "we've got to catch up with the rest of the world", and increase
> the US copyright term beyond what some other country has.  Then the
> corporations in that country tell their legislature that they have to
> "catch up" with the US, and they increase theirs beyond ours, and
> then...
> 
> As you may be aware, there is very little computer software and
> documentation from 1922 and earlier that is now in the public
> domain.
> 
>> whatever happened to fair use in this screwed up world?
> 
> Fair use?  Why should the copyright owners let us have fair use?  That
> won't help their profits any.  We only get fair use to the extent that
> Disney et al. haven't yet convinced Congress and the courts to take it
> away from us.
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> [*] For works of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from
> publication or 120 years from creation.
> 

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