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Path: utzoo!linus!cca!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!cires!nbires!zhahai
From: zhahai@nbires.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: piracy
Message-ID: <169@nbires.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Jun-83 04:13:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: nbires.169
Posted: Fri Jun  3 04:13:11 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jun-83 19:38:40 EDT
Lines: 32

Some netlanders seem to have very strong feelings about piracy.  I am
not here concerned with the legal definition (of which there probably
isn't one), nor with the issue of breaking a contact/ license (if you
contract to never use the label "sneeze" within some software, you are
breaking your contract if you do - but that is not piracy; ie: special
terms in a license are just that).  I am wondering what the perceived
"ethics" and peer norms are for the following situations:

1. You transfer a binary (legally obtained) from cassette to floppy, or
from floppy to hard disk.  (Or from disk to ramdisk, or ...).

2. You copy a prom from a 2708 to a 2716 during hardware upgrade (in every
case here assume legally obtained unless otherwise stated).

3. You make a backup copy for your own use and protect it.

4. You change the cpu card or chip (moving from 8080 to z80) of your
system.

5. You buy a new system and move your purchased software to it, no longer
using the old system and removing any copies from it before diaposal.

6. You disassemble the ROM which came with your system to understand
certain quirks of the i/o ports.

7. You disassemble your purchased BASIC interpreter.

I think you get the point - do you feel that the "spirit" of the laws
is non-comerciality (depriving the rightful owwners of a sale) or 
total non-copying?  INterested in Responses

Zhahai Stewart