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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

>Nobody is buying or selling this software. Nobody’s business or livelihood is threatened by this.

Because the media was no longer in the rights holder's possession. This is a dangerous line of reasoning where someone can steal a copyrighted work and then be allowed to profit off of it because the artist has no way to do so.

Being able to see a long lost UNIX version is interesting and I could imagine it being worth paying to see it or play with it similar to how people pay money to see things at a museum.

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Dangerous line of reasoning??? Allowing time for an author to monetize a work is the legal rationale for copyright protection. There is no commercial value to this software.

Here is a hypothetical. You see someone on their iPad making a nice drawing. You then steal the iPad and then start making prints of that art and start selling them. To me the artist should be able to disallow such prints from being sold.

But your line of reasoning says that since the artist is unable to make money from the print, then there is nothing wrong with someone else doing so as the artist isn't missing out on any profit since they have no way to sell prints.

This is a false equivalence. The iPad would have to be 45 years old and, after the artist had sold the art many times before to others, had the iPad rediscovered by someone after it had been lost in their mom’s attic.

I'm specifically referring to the line of reasoning that if it doesn't cause material harm to infringe copyright, then it's okay to do.

That scenario is materially different. The details matter a lot in IP law.

Also please note that I have not said that the copyright is not valid. However, a case for fair use is not unfounded here.

> your line of reasoning says

It ain’t my line of reasoning. I’m paraphrasing the actual law:

As 17 USC § 107 says:

> In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include— (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

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