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Copyright law is universal under the Berne Convention and it prevents unlicensed duplicates of the software from legally being distributed. This is not US law,
by chx 2y ago
Copyright law is universal under the Berne Convention and it prevents unlicensed duplicates of the software from legally being distributed. This is not US law, it's law everywhere, even the very few countries which are not signatories to the Berne Convention are signatories to TRIPS.
Gates does not hold the copyright for MS DOS 6.22 and it's not 7 years but 70. But yes, eventually yes, see how Sherlock Holmes became public domain. For PC software in 2024 this is not yet relevant, the Berne minimum is death plus 50 and the IBM PC is not yet 50 years old.
- BSDobelix 2y agoHmm, thanks! I learned something today,
- chx 2y agoEven some countries which can't enter these international conventions because they are not part of the UN/WIPO due to lack of wide diplomatic recognition have laws to honor copyright as prescribed in Berne, it's too important for international trade. For example, part of the Stabilization and Association Agreement the European Union made with Kosovo included IP laws including copyright. https://cps.rks-gov.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/LAW_NO._04_L-065_ON_COPYRIGHT_AND_RELATED_RIGHTS.pdf https://cps.rks-gov.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/LAW_NO._0...