Do we want legal questions?

Question

I see that Is it legal to download ROM images from shared or internet archives? has entered the CV queue.

Do we want legal questions on Retrocomputing? We have this issue on Stack Overflow all of the time where people post questions about the legality of something marginally software related, and most of the time I end up closing them as off-topic, as we aren't lawyers or support for [your favorite company].

Should we take the same approach here?

Answer 1

The answer to this specific Meta question is, generally, going to be "No."

But that is not what is really being discussed here, at least from my point of view.

The QA that spawned this meta discussion so late in the day was prompted by a real-world sub question in an existing Retro discussion. People are going to come to Retro with questions and confusion about the general notion of downloading images for personal retro-computing reasons.

In general, these people do not need a lawyer's answer for the question at hand. Just like over on Photography SE, you don't need to be a lawyer to answer "do my photos belong to me" or "should I get a release form signed" (both typical and well-answered questions over there). Yes, we should defer to a legal expert when discussing specifics, and such answers are encouraged to say this. But many of those questions related to copyright can be answered well enough for the answers to have utility for the audience, now and into the future. Again, this is true for Retro as it is for Photography and other SE sites.

The purpose of guidelines is not to collect a bunch of criteria with which to beat people with. The purpose of guidelines is to support the notion of useful questions and answers that are relevant to our interests.

We should be promoting useful QA that serves the needs of the community, not getting tied up in knots over categorizations. At the heart of this discussion is the question "is this QA good for the community, and does it serve the community?" Does it address a specific concern, and can it be addressed in a sufficiently specific manner?

That is, while in general legal questions (especially those that have a strong regional component) are probably not on-topic for Retro, a general question about how the Retro community might gain access to copyrighted material is on topic. Even if it is a special case, we should always be wary of categorization scope creep.

In conclusion:

• Generally speaking, most questions that hinge on the legalities of the hobby are going to be off-topic.
• That being said, the great majority of such questions are going to be variations on a theme.
• The theme is going to be variations on "Is it generally legal to download and possess commercial software that appears to abandoned?"
• These questions are going to be common. They are also very straightforward to answer because of the nature of the international law at play.
• Because of how a huge majority of countries have signed onto the law, it is pretty easy to provide a general, global answer: "Generally, no."
• Almost every SE site where the interest intersects with copyright have similar questions with similar answers.

Answer 2

I do not believe legal questions should be on-topic. Laws vary across the world, and one answer for one country many not apply somewhere else. I also don't believe multiple answers for each country where copyright law differs would be constructive.

Answer 3

I'm going to slightly disagree with what appears to be the consensus. It is perfectly possible to answer the question of whether retro software in general can be downloaded legally. The short answer is "no". The longer and more nuanced answer would be pretty much exactly like tofro's answer here.

There's also the question of specific software. For example, I need to download a copy of the Sinclair Spectrum ROMs. I was able to find a statement from the copyright holder that stated it was OK to do this for non commercial purposes. Another example: when thinking about doing a PDP-11 emulation, I found out that Hewlett Packard (current owners of what used to be Digital) have a retro programme, which if you sign up, allows you to use PDP-11 software (operating systems mainly) for hobbyist purposes.

I don't know what other site these questions would fit. At Law SE, they could obviously answer the generic question, but I doubt if anybody there has ever researched the options for downloading a copy of RSTS legally.

There's a second argument for not accepting legal questions and that is the one of liability. If an answer we give is wrong and somebody gets sued, we may find ourselves in court too. Personally, I don't believe it would ever come to this especially with an IANAL disclaimer but IANAL, so I might be wrong. If this is a concern, don't mince about pretending legal questions are off topic, be honest: "we can't take the risk that we might get sued".

Answer 4

Given that there exists Law.SE where different jurisdictions are accommodated, I would suggest that that would be the first place to go to post such questions.

While we at Retrocomputing can answer How do I install my licence? type questions, I think we would just be distracted by legal arguments.

The particular question that you have linked is too old to try to migrate.

Your bonus question, I would say is not related to the law at all. It asks why a particular licencing model was adopted. The only real answer to which would have to come from Microsoft.

Answer 5

Let's face it:

The cases where we have explicit permission from the copyright holders of retro software are maybe much less than 1% of the available software (Obviously varies between age and make of software). Retro computing will always operate in some sort of grey legal area. If we'd in all cases "go by the book", we'd just do nothing or write all of the software from scratch.

The legal situation, however, is quite clear: In most countries, not having a proof of license or explicit permission makes any use of old software illegal. That basically says "Retro doesn't work without accepting the fact that you might be doing something illegal" and better stay away from it if you want to be a lawful citizen.... Not very encouraging in case someone is looking for a new hobby.

Fact is, that most of us live quite happily with a situation that the original copyright holders may no longer be around or have lost interest in pursuing their copyright. I have, in the past, tried to contact known copyright holders of retro software to try and convince them to release the SW into the public domain. Understandably, about 95% of the contacted didn't even bother to answer.

To sum it up: I don't think this is the right place to discuss copyright issues. One reason being the above, another the fact that most of us are no lawyers - in some countries (mine included), giving legal advice over the internet could, even for the layman, but much more for the professional be subject to further liabilities and legal implications which we all want to avoid.

Answer 6

I don't think we should have legal questions here. I honestly don't know why someone would come to a community website looking for legal advice. No more than I would treat a medical condition from a Wikipedia article.

Not to mention the laws are different in every country. Plus, giant corporations can sometimes have laws changed (looking at you Disney).

So legal questions really just seem out of scope for this site.

Answer 7

I also do see a need to include legal questions.

The pivotal point here is related to retrocomputing.

• A question if it's legal to play some MP3 of {insert the latest one hit wonder of American Idol here} on an Amiga is not retrocomputing related at all, but about useage of current content.

• A question about connecting some 1990s device with restrictive usage issues ('only to be used with system XYZ') can be on topic.

• While a question about the legal situation of software imports in the 1970, or since when software could be copyrighted at all, is clearly is on topic.

While the second on needs to be justified on a case to case base - the OP of the question must add why it's relevant - I do see the last one as another facet of our interest and a quite important.

Laws, regulations and there interpretation are changing over time. So a situation that's clear today might not have been the same 20 years ago and vice versa. I still remember about all the problems to import microcomputer software to Germany in the late 70. Not because there where any laws prohibiting it, but because the tax office had no fricking idea how to legaly handle an Apple Panic disk.

Since most answers to the OPs question up to now revolve around Copyright, we should keep in mind that todays usage and interpretation hasn't fallen from heaven. After all, in the 60, noone could even imagine that something like code could fall under copyright. The legal fights establishing this have been running for decades. Especially the anglosaxon system of case based law is a great source for questions, isn't it?

And last but not least, the changes that brought us todays legal framework arround computers haven't been implemented all arround the word at the same time (if at all), not in the same way. So I see plenty of room for retrocomputing related law question, with a well defined context.