USA Legalizes Abandonware

According to PCS Intel, the U.S. Copyright Office has issued new rules, effective November 26, enabling public access to commercially unavailable software.

New rules officially permit the use and distribution of so-called Abandonware, or software that is no longer generally available to the public (in the form it was originally released). Meaning, you can now legally use MAME to emulate classic arcade games on your phone (assuming it's powerful enough... and the game is no longer available).

The above article speaks specifically about phone software, and the good news from the original text of Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works is:

Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

Meaning, your use of classic science fiction games for DOS, such as Dune and Elite, from sites such as Abandonia is officially decriminalized!

Video: Cyberpunk Educator

The Cyberpunk Educator is "1980's study of cyberpunk film for structural, literary and political content. Or if you, prefer, the story of existentialist robots with guns."

The authors use the term in very broad sense and provide sometimes surprising, but always relevant connections, dispensing knowledge about number of notions, including some of the basic premises of Western Civilisation.

Beware: this free film, made available by www.cyberpunkfilm.com, is 1:40 hrs long, and can suck you in like the mythical heroes it discusses. Even if you don't fully agree with its conclusions, it can serve as a reminder to see again some classic movies.

Side note: it might be wise to dowload the movie soon, before the copyright lawyers get it. It even includes music from U2.

Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson

Melancholy Elephants (full text) is a powerful short story by Spider Robinson from the book with the same name, is worth reading by all interested in workings of modern economy, intellectual property and copyrights. It relates some principal concerns in both enterntaining and intellectually stimulating manner.

She struggled to get back on the rails. "Well, it takes a lot less than that to equal `infinity' in most minds. For millions of years we looked at the ocean and said, `That is infinite. It will accept our garbage and waste forever.' We looked at the sky and said, `That is infinite: it will hold an infinite amount of smoke.' We like the idea of infinity. A problem with infinity in it is easily solved. How long can you pollute a planet infinitely large? Easy: forever. Stop thinking.

"Then one day there are so many of us that the planet no longer seems infinitely large.

"So we go elsewhere. There are infinite resources in the rest of the solar system, aren't there? I think you are one of the few people alive wise enough to realize that there are not infinite resources in the solar system, and sophisticated enough to have included that awareness in your plans."

Take note: it's not about climate crisis, but about limits to human creativity. Creative Commons addresses some of the issues from the story.