Same thing happened with Tridef. The company went under, didn't release a free version of the software, and now people who bought it legally have to resort to using a crack.
I've said it a few times, but it's worth repeating IMO: copyright is a deal, where a creator gets a time-limited monopoly in exchange for works entering the public domain.
If a company have arranged things so their work can't enter the public domain (eg DRM) then they should not get copyright protection, fundamentally it's wrong to get the benefit of copyright without giving up your work to the public domain.
This can be solved by a requirement to register an unhindered copy, whilst they're at it orphaned works should be made copyright free, IMO.
I'm glad to hear that others have the same opinion regarding software copyrights. I'd even go one step further and say that the source code must be included in that unhindered copy. Otherwise, the public's right to make derivative works from things in the public domain cannot be upheld.
The companies will say that they're still using parts of the old code in newer products covered by copyright, so this won't happen.
Besides, we'd have to have copyright periods on software of 3-5 years, 10 tops, for software copyright to even make sense. Not 70+, which is longer than any recognizable computer industry ever existed.
I am assuming that this would be part of a wider reform of copyright. For the case you mentioned, already under current copyright law, creation of a derivative work does not prevent a work from entering into the public domain (albeit after an unconscionably long period of time). To prevent such a argument being made after the fact, source code should be placed in escrow at the time of publication, with copyright protection given only after it has been verified that the provided source code can reproduce the binary being protected.
This arrangement would also protect the public good in cases where the original company has gone bankrupt, or where the source code would otherwise have been lost.
Is source code covered by copyright at all if it's never published? I thought that was the bare minimum.
If they never release the source code at all, I think we're just screwed, legally anyway. The DRM was attached to your binary or stream (or book), not the original source material. We may not like it, but I don't think it's copyright you have to worry about when it comes to closed source code.
Under current law, copyright applies to any creative work, regardless of publication status. This leads to abominations such as Disney's Vault, intentionally restricting access to a work that is part of the public consciousness.
In my ideal world, if the source code is not placed under escrow and tested to result in the distributed binary, then there would be no monopoly given to that binary. Anybody is allowed to copy it to the fullest extent that they are able to.
