How to deal with preservation of software with unknown author and licence?

Some even very old educational software is still of value today and it is worth preserving.

The problem is that nowadays the licence rights are very important topic, but 20 or 30 years ago it was not considered important for many programmers, who have made such software peaces, don't placing any licence or even their names. But how can you tell if such program, found in some archive in school workshop was intentionally made without credits, or such credits were removed by someone?

Can the archiving such software for preservation theoretically and practically violate someone's intellectual or material rights? Note that such software is to be considered coming from unknown source, because no one is going no to tell, where such program come from, and who have copied them? It may be some student's work or pirated software of some company who doesn't exist anymore.

Łukasz Lech

• digital-preservation
• software
• copyright

Comments

• gmcgath: This is an example of what's known in the general case as "orphan works," works that may be in copyright but to which there are no known claims. It's a problem that big institutions have wrestled with, without much success.

Answer by NONE

It depends.

Some jurisdictions allow exemptions to copyright law for archives, allowing them to make copies without breaching any copyright.

Without knowing what laws apply to you and what exemptions under copyright legislation exist, it is difficult to provide a definitive answer.

Proper legal advice should be sought to ensure that the risks of having an action taken against you are minimised.

Comments

• Michael Kjörling: Of course, simply having the software in an archive (the "make copies without breaching any copyright") does you little good if you can't legally run it, or show it to anyone. The question as asked might be answerable in a general sense, but proper legal advice for one's own locale should *definitely* be sought in addition.

Answer by wizzard0

There is a neat legal workaround - register the company operating the archive on Antigua and Barbuda which is specifically exempt from WIPO copyright treaties and DMCA. You'll probably have to keep at least some employees there, with the rest as the contractors from where they are.

Also, keep a DMCA complaint form right next to any software item, and check the email often.

This is as practical as it can get :)

If you live in the country that is a member of WIPO (I think yes), I suggest writing them directly, but AFAIK there are no solutions as of now.

Comments

• gmcgath: I am no lawyer, but I have serious doubts that merely registering a site in a country provides any protection if you don't actually live there. There are lots of domains registered in Tuvalu (.tv) and Montenegro (.me), but that doesn't mean they operate under the laws and immunities of those countries.
• wizzard0: Not website, but an entire company. With a legal address, taxes, probably employees on the island and so on. The actual employees could then be contractors of said company.