Ethics of using older software that may be pirated

  • Thread starter Thread starter kmaaj
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
kmaaj said:
Thanks, it is the same version, and I saw that listing a few weeks ago. Fair use does allow for the original owner to make a copy if the original may be degraded, and the description in the listing said:
This is a used program so it is not in the orginal packaging
YOU ARE BIDDING ON A CUSTOMIZED CD OF COOL EDIT PRO 2.1. FULL INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS WILL ARRIVE WITH THE CD.
So I asked the owner if this was a legit copy, and did he have the original cd, even if it was unusable. That was three weeks ago, and I never got a response.
Click to expand...
Hi kmaaj:

This makes me suspicious. Maybe the seller is busy, on holidays, or something else…but no answer in three weeks? Perhaps this is one of the ebay fakes the reviewers were warning us about. I, being a curious sort of fellow, had a look at Adobe’s own website, to see if they might have a user swap section, buy and sell corner, or something like that. Nothing at all for CoolEditPro. I also looked at Amazon; they list it, but say it is currently “unavailable” (no clue if they will ever get it back). The audio and music forums/webpages talk about this a little; the administrator Steven G. at Audioforums spoke a bit about this, here:

*"Quote from: rhmd8833 on October 03, 2009, 10:04:35 PM
This leads me to look for Cool Edit Pro – I tried to purchase a license using the in-program registration mode but it kept hanging near the end. I assume this is because the internet server is down as basically Cool Edit Pro is now Audition.

Steven G: I should add a couple of things for completeness; firstly, this registration program doesn’t work because that particular server hasn’t been operational since 2003 - it’s the old Syntrillium one that Adobe closed down immediately after purchasing the company.
Secondly, it’s worth pointing out that there is a legal way to purchase CEP - but only one. And that is to buy from an individual who is selling a single registered copy, and make sure that you get the original disk and registration code. The seller is effectively transferring the purchased right to use the software to you, and for this to be legal they must retain no copy themselves, and you have to have the original disk.
Even with the download-only Cool Edit 2000, Adobe have been very cagey. They did eventually let people download replacement files, but only if you had a previous registration made with Syntrillium would they work unlocked - no new unlocking has been allowed at all. Primarily they are actively interested in not allowing people to peddle previous versions of the software - they only want to sell the current version. You can’t even buy previous Audition versions from them, for heaven’s sake!"*

audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php?topic=7668.0

This tells us that we need to be very careful even if we do buy an old original CD from someone, off ebay or anywhere else; if you get the disc, it needs to have a registration code written on it, not one that you register online (like so many things these days). Once Adobe bought the company that makes CoolEditPro, they shut down the registration/activation webpage, this forcing people to throw out their (perfectly legal) disks and buy new Adobe Audition programs. Even someone who would buy it legally could find out that it could not be activated! This is corporate vandalism on Adobe’s part, and it needs to be subverted. If a company deliberately de-activates someone’s legally purchased program by shutting down its online web service, then I think that customer is perfectly within his rights to reverse engineer his own registration, crack it, p2p it, torrent it, or whatever, to get it working. It was the corporation that misbehaved here, not the consumer.

This might be worth a query on the Adobe webforums…ask them if they can sell you an old version, or if there’s anyone out there that has an old version they’re willing to sell you. If Ebay hasn’t got a legal one, and Amazon hasn’t got a legal one, and Adobe hasn’t got a legal one, and nobody wants to sell you one, then I think you’ve done all a reasonable person can do. If your current program is working, back it up/image it immediately (as if you have to reinstall it someday, it may not work again without a nonavailable webpage “registration”, and Adobe certainly doesn’t care about it’s legacy users anymore).

Have you considered oldversion or oldapps? They have dozens of versions of these (and other) programs, here:

oldapps.com/CoolEdit.php
oldversion.com/download-Cool-Edit-Pro-2.0.html

As far as I can see, these are perfectly legal websites; they don’t seem to promote “piracy” (though we here in Canada are lucky enough to live under a free government, where file sharing is legal, unlike the DMCA-crippled “land of the free”). See point 7. here:

oldapps.com/help.php
oldversion.com/about_us.php

Oldversion’s Mission Statement could well have been written by me…it encapsulates exactly what I’ve been arguing about for years.

"Sometimes upgrading to a newer version can be a good thing. Other times, your computer may not be compatible with the new version, the new version is bloated, or all the options you liked are no longer available. OldVersion.com has been supplying the online community with old versions of various programs since 2001… (snip)

OldVersion.com has several objectives. One is to discourage the use of spyware/adware by software companies… (snip).

OldVersion.com assists computer users who are unable to continually upgrade their computer. Those who find that their machine is not able to run the latest version of a certain application have no choice but to use an old version of the program. Unfortunately, the vast majority of software companies do not offer this opportunity. We are doing our small part to help bridge the digital divide by allowing everyone to enjoy the same software titles regardless of their hardware.

We believe that every computer user has the right to use a version of the product that he or she is most comfortable with, not the one dictated by the software developer, so we provide access to the files that are no longer obtainable.

Lastly, there is a need to archive cultural artifacts. If software is allowed to disappear into the past, a piece of history is lost. People must have access to this data in order to understand the direction of computer industry and civilization as a whole."

This! 👍 The corporate lemmings who say “all filesharing/downloading is piracy/theft” simply do not understand this (even leaving aside the fact I could torrent/download things like this quite legally in Canada and many other countries…the United States is a big country, but they do not set the rules for the entire world). It is important that the “mixes” and “jingles” you musicians make using old software are preserved for future ages…and if a software maker like Adobe tries to stamp out competing programs and force upgrades on people that they do not want, it is up to us to resist them. What you and your musician friends made a dozen years ago may have importance in the future; it must not be lost because a mere corporation decided profits came first, and their legacy users could go and “get stuffed”.

Jacques
 
SonCatcher said:
Those would be the “trial” versions I mentioned in post 14. Since Cool Edit trials didn’t expire (just limit usage severely), it is a legal, but annoying, path.
Click to expand...
Hi SonCatcher:

What would you think of using some “crack” or “torrent” or “hack” or reverse-engineering to upgrade these trial version on oldapps to fully functional programs? I mean, if it’s (1) impossible to buy a new copy from the copyright “owners” Adobe, (2) you can’t buy a new copy off ebay or amazon or the other online retailers, and (3) you can’t buy a legitimate old CD version of the program either because Adobe is trying to make everyone upgrade to Audition (effectively, trying to kill off the program altogether)…isn’t there some point where yes, you’ve done what any reasonable person ought to do, and it hasn’t worked, so you create your own solution? I mean the original poster has been trying to buy a “legal” copy of this thing for a month now (at least), but nobody is willing to sell him one.

If I wanted to buy a book, say, but was told (1) it’s out of print; (2) the publisher will never print it again; (3) amazon and chapters and barnes/noble won’t carry it; (4) used bookstores won’t sell it either; (5) they won’t put it out in another modern format, like an ebook or something, because they want you to read their “better” ebooks instead…eventually, doesn’t there come a point where you say, hey, I’ve done the most a reasonable person can do, so I’ll borrow it from the library, and scan it into my computer, and make my own ebook myself, before the library copy is lost or vandalized or destroyed?

I think copyright “holders” have some rights, but they can’t just do anything they want, especially regarding unique cultural artifacts you can’t get any other way…consumers ought to have some protection against oligarchies, monopolies, and other corporate abuse (I think the deliberate and planned destruction of a computer program is such an example of abuse…it’s a sort of computer vandalism, rather like the infamous alleged Atari Video Game Desert Burials of the 1980s, or the deliberate destruction of cultural artifacts like the Afghan Buddhas or the Timbuktu Shrines)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18657463

Richard Stallman paints a horrible dystopia of corporate abuse in his parable of intellectual freedom, “The Right To Read”, Today, we think nothing of going into a public library and reading any book we find interesting…suppose that was no longer possible?

gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Jacques
 
Jacques,

So long as the copyright remains in force, it is illegal to make unauthorized copies for any reason.

Adobe does sell the current version of the product, even though it has been renamed. Therefore, they keep rights over it. If you want the old version, you’ll have to work something out with them.

With books, it is legal to borrow the library’s copy as frequently as you like. It is still illegal to make copies if it is under copyright. A college I went to needed an out-of-print textbook for a class (the last time they were teaching COBOL). Their bookstore had one last copy. They contacted the publisher and purchased a license to make enough copies of the book to distribute to the students. Without that permission, they would have dropped the class.

The Atari problem does not compare because they were destroying copies that nobody wanted to buy or even own. They would have been sorely put out to warehouse them for eternity.

The Afghan Bhudda and Timbuktu problems are even less comparable since they were never copyrightable in the first place. There loss is tragic but they were not lost due to any copyright question.

Right now, Project Gutenberg hosts more than most would be able to read in a lifetime and more works are added each year. I’m sure the reasonable cheapskate’s thirst for knowledge can be sated by it.
 
SonCatcher said:
Jacques,
So long as the copyright remains in force, it is illegal to make unauthorized copies for any reason. Adobe does sell the current version of the product, even though it has been renamed. Therefore, they keep rights over it. If you want the old version, you’ll have to work something out with them.
Click to expand...
Hi SonCatcher:

Well based on the evidenced adduced earlier in this thread, Adobe wants people to use its latest version only, and categorically refuses to “work things out” with them. They apparently won’t even let people buy earlier versions of the Audition program that “replaced” CoolEditPro:

audiomastersforum.net/amf…p?topic=7668.0
SonCatcher said:
With books, it is legal to borrow the library’s copy as frequently as you like. It is still illegal to make copies if it is under copyright. A college I went to needed an out-of-print textbook for a class (the last time they were teaching COBOL). Their bookstore had one last copy. They contacted the publisher and purchased a license to make enough copies of the book to distribute to the students. Without that permission, they would have dropped the class. The Atari problem does not compare because they were destroying copies that nobody wanted to buy or even own. They would have been sorely put out to warehouse them for eternity.
Click to expand...
First, I’m glad you got an “exemption” to use your textbook, but the advance of human knowledge trumps copyright…if we can’t train the next generation of computer experts, who the devil is going to write the new textbooks/software these corporate criminals so desperately want to copyright, forever and for all time? We have plenty of Educational/Academic/Scholarly/Fair Use exemptions for a lot of this stuff here in Canada; I don’t know how it is elsewhere. But standing on “copyright law” for COBOL is much the same as refusing to allow people to distribute CP/M, for crying out loud; they’ve both been obsolete for years. Gaby Chaudry/Tim Olstead have been working valiantly to keep CP/M alive, but corporate idiocy over “copyright” has gotten in the way for a long time (which is why the digital archives will always be incomplete…some corporations stood on principle, and the work done by all the software and hardware engineers for twenty years was lost forever):

cpm.z80.de/

As for the Atari problem, I beg to differ. The video game collapse of 1983 was a culturally significant event, and there is some evidence that a few key Atari video games were involved. I was interested in acquiring such games, but was told (as usual) that they were no longer available, and would not be reissued. Fortunately, I was able to find a cartridge of one of them in my local Salvation Army Thrift Shop; I’m still looking for another, and hope to buy it oneday, as these days old games are pretty cheap, really.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
SonCatcher said:
The Afghan Bhudda and Timbuktu problems are even less comparable since they were never copyrightable in the first place. There loss is tragic but they were not lost due to any copyright question. Right now, Project Gutenberg hosts more than most would be able to read in a lifetime and more works are added each year. I’m sure the reasonable cheapskate’s thirst for knowledge can be sated by it.
Click to expand...
That’s the reason I quoted them; they were never “copyrightable” in the first place. In other words, what we “copyright”, and agree to call “copyrighted”, is a subjective and changeable thing, thank goodness. There’s no reason computer data needs to be copyrighted at all, really…there are lots of programs/operating systems that don’t use copyright, and personal computing would carry on just fine without it.

But the Afghan Statues were cultural artifacts held hostage to vandalism by the fact they were unique, or hard to replace. Suppose the Afghan government decreed that they held a “copyright” on all cultural works, and they had the power to decide whether or not they should be shown/exhibited, or destroyed? Actually they did something that was basically the same thing: they said their Islamic law trumps anyone’s cultural/historical interest in the statues, so away they go, bring out the dynamite. “Copyright” is a legal construct, I suppose, but it presupposes a “reasonable” government, one which is not bent on the destruction of its own heritage and history. There’s no shortage of despotic governments who wanted to torch books/recordings/videos/computer programs and other ideas they didn’t agree with.

Suppose the Muslim Brotherhood decided, upon taking control of Egypt, that they held a “copyright” on the Great Pyramids, and decided to have them destroyed, because they, after all, held the “rights” to them? Just how far does copyright go, anyway? As far as I’m concerned, no government or corporate entity has the right to destroy cultural artifacts for reasons of profit (Adobe) or ideology (Afghanistan, Mali). We digital archivists do not care if we are considered “pirates”; we want to preserve the past, and we won’t let the philistines and vandals destroy it, no matter how rich/powerful they are.

Jacques

I hope we can agree to disagree on this in good faith; and now, I must go back to “tending my archive”.
 
JacquesMaritain said:
If I wanted to buy a book, say, but was told (1) it’s out of print; (2) the publisher will never print it again; (3) amazon and chapters and barnes/noble won’t carry it; (4) used bookstores won’t sell it either; (5) they won’t put it out in another modern format, like an ebook or something, because they want you to read their “better” ebooks instead…eventually, doesn’t there come a point where you say, hey, I’ve done the most a reasonable person can do, so I’ll borrow it from the library, and scan it into my computer, and make my own ebook myself, before the library copy is lost or vandalized or destroyed?

I think copyright “holders” have some rights, but they can’t just do anything they want, especially regarding unique cultural artifacts you can’t get any other way…consumers ought to have some protection against oligarchies, monopolies, and other corporate abuse (I think the deliberate and planned destruction of a computer program is such an example of abuse…it’s a sort of computer vandalism, rather like the infamous alleged Atari Video Game Desert Burials of the 1980s, or the deliberate destruction of cultural artifacts like the Afghan Buddhas or the Timbuktu Shrines)
Click to expand...
I think you make a good point about the great danger of copyright. People do not realize that copyright is a monopoly (all monopolies are grants from the government and do not exist naturally) that now extends for well beyond a lifetime. With books, music and movies people seem to be willing to accept this ridiculous monopoly created to benefit the our fascist corporate system. But they must not have thought this out thoroughly.

What if some scientist discovers the formula to some medicine that cures every disease man has. Let us say another scientist discovers the formula the next day. But let us say the first scientists patents the formula. Let us also say the first scientist refuses to allow the medicine to be produced because he thinks the world is overpopulated already and wants to protect the earth. If we think that Intellectual Property is good and right we’d have to allow this man to do that. But it seems to me ridiculous. The whole argument for IP is that it benefits society. In this case society is clearly held hostage. Society provides the very legal system which gives this scientist the ability to stop a known medicine from being produced to cure sick people. That is perverse. I’ll admit this is probably unlikely because at least the greed of man will lead most people to sell anything if the price is right. But it is a possibility and not one you can complain about being wrong if you’ve supported copyright as moral in all other instances.
 
exnihilo said:
I think you make a good point about the great danger of copyright. People do not realize that copyright is a monopoly (all monopolies are grants from the government and do not exist naturally) that now extends for well beyond a lifetime. With books, music and movies people seem to be willing to accept this ridiculous monopoly created to benefit the our fascist corporate system. But they must not have thought this out thoroughly.
Click to expand...
Hi ExNihilo:

Thanks for pointing that out; you are so right about this! Copyright is a government-sponsored monopoly that would never exist on its own, had not governments and corporations developed it (for their interests, mind you, not ours). The first copyright law in Europe (the British Statute of Anne, 1710) allowed the copyright of books only, for 14 years; translations, derivative works, maps, plays, performances, and all that sort of stuff was not copyrighted at all. Governments and Companies primarily introduced copyrights to control what books and periodicals were available for people to read, as a form of early censorship and control.

It may interest people to know that the American Constitution made it permissible to have a “copyright” system to “advance the technical arts” and sciences, but it did not require that one be created. But once the first copyright system was introduced (1790: copyright lasted for 14 years only, and you could renew it for another 14 years, but if you were still alive, meaning 28 years maximum!), it didn’t take long for corporate interests to start extending it to maximize their profits. In the 1830s, copyright was increased to 40 years; then in 1909, 55 years. The 1976 Copyright Act allowed a company to copyright a work for the author’s entire lifetime, plus another 50 years on top of that; and in 1998, it was further increased to 75 years after their deaths, or an astonishing 95 years if the work was made by someone who was hired by a corporation to do it! Copyright terms have been expanded at least a dozen times in the past century, and always to favour the corporations that held the copyrights, never to favour the users who actually read the books. These expansions put a great deal of material that used to be considered “public domain” out of reach; it is now locked up in vaults and archives, and cannot be made available to the people who want to use it. Examples include over 50,000 historic Mexican sound recordings, several million university library volumes, access to many historic scientific journals, an archive of 100,000 oceanographic pictures, a treasure trove of historic jazz tapes, and so much more we cannot list it all:

chronicle.com/article/Out-of-Fear-Institutions-Lock/127701/
abajournal.com/magazine/article/a_trove_of_historic_jazz_recordings_has_found_a_home_in_harlem_but_you_cant
techdirt.com/articles/20120103/04010217258/why-johnny-cant-read-any-new-public-domain-books-us-because-nothing-new-entered-public-domain.shtml
tomwbell.com/writings/%28C%29_Term.html
exnihilo said:
What if some scientist discovers the formula to some medicine that cures every disease man has. Let us say another scientist discovers the formula the next day. But let us say the first scientists patents the formula. Let us also say the first scientist refuses to allow the medicine to be produced because he thinks the world is overpopulated already and wants to protect the earth. If we think that Intellectual Property is good and right we’d have to allow this man to do that. But it seems to me ridiculous. The whole argument for IP is that it benefits society. In this case society is clearly held hostage. Society provides the very legal system which gives this scientist the ability to stop a known medicine from being produced to cure sick people. That is perverse. I’ll admit this is probably unlikely because at least the greed of man will lead most people to sell anything if the price is right. But it is a possibility and not one you can complain about being wrong if you’ve supported copyright as moral in all other instances.
Click to expand...
Believe it or not, this sort of thing actually happens. Scientific discoveries often happen simultaneously, in different parts of the world; consider the 1859 publication of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, co-discovered with Alfred Russel Wallace (Thank God those two were professional, adult scientists…had they decided to behave like corporations and patent their various ideas, biological science would have been held back for decades).

Another good example is the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It may interest people to know that this was discovered by two research groups, Bob Gallo in the United States and Luc Montagnier in France, in 1983. There were lots of accusations of “theft” and “contamination” in research samples the two labs exchanged (you can read about the whole tawdry affair in Randy Shilts’ history of the AIDS Epidemic And The Band Played On). But the salient point here is that the two groups were preparing to sue each other for legal patents/copyrights for the tests being used to identify the virus. Had they been allowed to do that, corporate copyright would have held up the development of AIDS research for decades, and thousands more people would have died waiting for blood tests:

“The question of whether the true discoverers of the virus were French or American was more than a matter of prestige. A US government patent for the AIDS test, filed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and based on what was claimed to be Gallo’s identification of the virus, was at stake. In 1987, both governments attempted to end the dispute by arranging to split the prestige of discovery and the proceeds from the patent 50-50, naming Montagnier and Gallo co-discoverers. The two scientists continued to dispute each other’s claims until 1987. It was not until President François Mitterrand of France and President Ronald Reagan of the USA met that the major issues were ironed out”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier

That’s what happens when you put profits before people. Are you listening, copyright defenders? This isn’t just about stupid distractions like the so called filesharing “theft” of Lady Gaga songs, or people that copy computer programs that have been obsolete since the days of Windows 98! This sort of stuff has real consequences. In a nutshell: in the case of HIV, copyright/patent claims had become so dangerous they were threatening the very lives of the citizens who had entrusted their governments with them. As you said, ExNihilo (rightly) “it seems to me ridiculous. The whole argument for IP is that it benefits society. In this case society is clearly held hostage.” Right you are, ExNihilo; at least Reagan and Mitterand were willing to be the “adults in the room” on this.

Thanks again for your informative post.

Jacques

PS: To save everybody some time, I’ve included a helpful template for the Copyright Defenders here:

/sarc on
In the case of your example of a vaccine that cures AIDS/cancer/polio/the common cold/the warts on my feet/every known disease, the moral/right/correct/Catholic/Christian thing to do would be to let everyone hurt/sicken/die/suffer uncontrollable itching, until the copyright/patent/intellectual property claims were properly resolved. If the scientist won’t sell you his ideas, then sharing them is stealing and that’s immoral (insert Catechism references here). We can’t allow the unrestricted theft of intellectual property…if we did that, there would be chaos.
/sarc off
 
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how anyone would worry about something like this. Most old software won’t even run on the newer computers, and it is worthless.

If someone gave you an old library book from an unknown library, would you worry about that?

Secular laws don’t carry the same weight as moral laws, and where on earth is your full knowledge and full consent? Jesus warned us about the Pharisees who burdened people with all sorts of laws that were impossible to keep.

In many cases (at least for the older software), it was perfectly legal to have a copy on your work computer and another copy on your home computer.
 
Listener said:
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how anyone would worry about something like this. Most old software won’t even run on the newer computers, and it is worthless.
If someone gave you an old library book from an unknown library, would you worry about that?
Secular laws don’t carry the same weight as moral laws, and where on earth is your full knowledge and full consent? Jesus warned us about the Pharisees who burdened people with all sorts of laws that were impossible to keep.

In many cases (at least for the older software), it was perfectly legal to have a copy on your work computer and another copy on your home computer.
Click to expand...
Hi Listener:

Well I’ve got a pony in this race because I’m an academic, and I need unrestricted access to old books/journals/programs to do effective research and teaching. Teaching my kids would stop tomorrow if we had to “source” the copyrights of everything we do, which is why Educational institutions normally get blanket exemptions for this stuff. But I agree with you; I am so ancient I remember the days when people traded 5.25 inch discs with (gasp!) programs on them. I even did a little bit of computer program writing myself (mainly scientific programs in PASCAL) but I gave it all away, copyright is boring, it only serves the corporations, not the people. We even remember the frantic efforts of the companies to stop people copying old discs, or recording songs off the radio onto 8-tracks/cassette tapes, or recording TV movies on a Betamax/VCR so you could skip through the commercials (Oh, the horror of it all!) Have a view, this brings back old memories (some things never change):

youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

🙂

Jacques
 
JacquesMaritain said:
Hi SonCatcher:

Well based on the evidenced adduced earlier in this thread, Adobe wants people to use its latest version only, and categorically refuses to “work things out” with them. They apparently won’t even let people buy earlier versions of the Audition program that “replaced” CoolEditPro:
Click to expand...
As mentioned previously in this thread, a license to the current version might allow the user to use a previous version or even “any” previous version (possibly including Cool Edit Pro). One would have to examine the license agreement to find out. Unfortunately, it is not simple to locate on Adobe’s server without downloading the software. Adobe doesn’t provide media for older versions but they shouldn’t be required to.
I’m glad you got an “exemption” to use your textbook
Click to expand...
There was no “exception” and it was not “fair use”. As I said, the school purchased a license to make copies. Essentially, they became an authorized publisher.
I hope we can agree to disagree on this in good faith; and now, I must go back to “tending my archive”.
Click to expand...
I suppose there is little common ground here. I do agree that copyright being used to squelch rich information is unfortunate. However, I do think that whatever is worthwhile will be properly promulgated when the copyright expires.
 
JacquesMaritain said:
Hi Listener:

Well I’ve got a pony in this race because I’m an academic, and I need unrestricted access to old books/journals/programs to do effective research and teaching. Teaching my kids would stop tomorrow if we had to “source” the copyrights of everything we do, which is why Educational institutions normally get blanket exemptions for this stuff. But I agree with you; I am so ancient I remember the days when people traded 5.25 inch discs with (gasp!) programs on them. I even did a little bit of computer program writing myself (mainly scientific programs in PASCAL) but I gave it all away, copyright is boring, it only serves the corporations, not the people. We even remember the frantic efforts of the companies to stop people copying old discs, or recording songs off the radio onto 8-tracks/cassette tapes, or recording TV movies on a Betamax/VCR so you could skip through the commercials (Oh, the horror of it all!) Have a view, this brings back old memories (some things never change):

youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI

🙂

Jacques
Click to expand...
I develop programs for pay so I suppose you could interpret that as a “pony” on my part. I am able to feed my family because people are willing to pay for the programs I write. It is possible that Syntrillium closed up shop (sold to Adobe) in part because not enough users were willing to pay for theirs. My ethics, however, predate my professional career by decades.

I likewise remember trading programs on disks. However, nearly all (that I recall) were shareware. The developer intended the program be disseminated in that form.

I do think that legitimate academic research does need unfettered access to various media. The OP, however, was asking about a tool (not a publication) that he intends to use in his business/hobby (not academic research).
 
SonCatcher said:
As mentioned previously in this thread, a license to the current version might allow the user to use a previous version or even “any” previous version (possibly including Cool Edit Pro). One would have to examine the license agreement to find out. Unfortunately, it is not simple to locate on Adobe’s server without downloading the software. Adobe doesn’t provide media for older versions but they shouldn’t be required to.There was no “exception” and it was not “fair use”. As I said, the school purchased a license to make copies. Essentially, they became an authorized publisher.I suppose there is little common ground here. I do agree that copyright being used to squelch rich information is unfortunate. However, I do think that whatever is worthwhile will be properly promulgated when the copyright expires.
Click to expand...
Hi Soncatcher:

Sorry about my mistake; yes, you are right, it wouldn’t be an “exemption” if the book publisher allowed people to buy licenses to make copies; I only wish companies like Adobe and Microsoft would do this, as people like the OP obviously want to buy their old stuff legally, if it were available (but it’s not).

You say that a license to a current edition might allow the use of older versions too, like the desired CoolEditPro. Didn’t the OP already go down this route? He says (in post 3) “I have Audacity and am evaluating Reaper, I am leaning towards purchasing Reaper.” If he already has Audacity and it gives a license to the older program, what’s the point of the OP asking the question about using CoolEditPro? If it’s true, then he already knows the answer, and it would be yes. I strongly suspect it isn’t, because if it was, people who like the old software would just buy a current license and keep using the old program, which Adobe doesn’t want them to do (see the audioforum posts I cited earlier).
SonCatcher said:
I do agree that copyright being used to squelch rich information is unfortunate. However, I do think that whatever is worthwhile will be properly promulgated when the copyright expires.
Click to expand...
I’d like to believe that too, but the history of copyright law tells us that this will not happen; indeed, it is more likely that copyright terms will get longer, not shorter (remember, back in the 1790s copyright terms were only 14 years long…today, **they extend up to 50 or even 75 years after the author has died!) ** That’s an eternity in computer time…you might just as well copyright the cave paintings of Lascaux in France:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaux_II.jpg

Let’s look at a few “commercial” software programs and see when their copyright terms finally expire, and they get released to the general population as “public domain”. I’m assuming people wrote these programs somewhere between about 20-60 years of age (most were on the younger side of that age limit, which makes things worse). Then I assume they live to be about 75 or so before they die (a conservative estimate). Then we add the 50 years. Let’s see what we get:

Computer programs written on punched cards in FORTRAN/BASIC in the 1970s…public domain around 2035 AD (will we still have functioning card readers by then?)

Wordstar programs for CP/M (the first popular word processor, and the first real Operating System for Microcomputers, 1978)…public domain around 2043 AD (will we still have working CP/M machines? I have one, but it will have rusted away long before then)

Microsoft Word for DOS, 1983. I wrote several scientific papers on this…public domain around 2050 AD (I actually tried to open an old MS-Word for DOS paper I had written years ago in a modern Word, and it worked pretty well. Not all the formatting/footnoting worked, but at least it wasn’t a mess, like what you would get with WordPerfect or Wordstar. I have no clue how anyone will recover documents written in them…the disks are rotting even as we speak).

Commodore 64 Software, 1982-1990…public domain around 2055 AD. God alone knows if there will be any working Commodore machines then. I have a working Commodore128 which still reads those discs, but hardware/software is becoming increasingly hard to find, even on the used market. Eventually, it will all be gone. Copyright police are even prosecuting archivists and hobbyists who are preserving these pieces of computer history, even when no profit/commercial gain is intended at all:

lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7781&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Today’s favourite software, movies or ebooks…public domain around 2080 to 2100 AD. I’ll be dead, and I expect you will be too. Maybe your grandchildren will be able to read them…if they haven’t lost the digital keys by then.

CoolEditPro (ca 1990-2000, depending on your edition)…public domain around 2065 AD (by which time, I expect many of the people reading these lines will be in heaven (or, sigh, the other place with sinners like me). To any historians of the distant future who somehow stumble upon this, I say: Greetings. We saved as much as we could. But as you can read (I’m so glad you figured out a way to decode this and make it legible again!) we archivists faced a lot of opposition, and were branded as crooks, thieves and pirates. Keep digging in these and other old archives, as there are a lot of us, but most of us kept quiet to avoid condemnation. Good Luck in your research…I hope you get the chance to find out what kind of a people, and culture, we were, all those years ago).

Jacques
 
SonCatcher said:
Right. The OP has Audacity, a FOSS alternative to Audition, the rebranded Cool Edit Pro. 😛

BTW - I fully support FOSS as an alternative according to the laisez-faire system of economics.
Click to expand...
Hi SonCatcher:

Thanks for the correction. We still don’t know, after all this discussion, if Adobe will allow the OP to make his (possibly) pirated version of CoolEditPro legal, as no one seems to know if you can buy an Adobe license/key/activation/whatever for Audition that will work with CoolEditPro, or gives you permission to use it legally, or whatever.

I thought I would get to the bottom of things and ask Adobe directly. I went to the website and spoke with a fellow on Adobe’s live chat, and I basically asked the same question as the OP. “I have a friend who has a copy of CoolEditPro, and he wants to know how he can make it legal/buy a license/get permission to use it”. They refused to answer my questions until I gave them my real name and a valid email address…I told them I was just a visitor, my name didn’t matter, and then they (not me) closed the window and terminated the session. I thought that a little…strange. Why won’t they give people simple information when they are asked?

So I started to poke around on the Adobe support forums. Some of the search results linked elsewhere, and these looked interesting:

audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,4954.0.html
So apparently you can’t upgrade legally from Audition 1 at all; so older legacy CoolEditPro users are probably out of luck here.

From the Administrator of Audioforums…a glimmer of hope?
"Unfortunately we know from the experience of others that whilst they can provide old serial numbers if you can prove who you are, they certainly won’t provide any links to any downloads - mainly because there aren’t any legal ones and they want to sell you some new software. Even more unfortunately, if it’s version 1 then you won’t even be on the upgrade eligibility path any more… it’s a pain."
audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php/topic,8575.0.html

So if you lost the program (say your computer crashed) but kept the old disk with serial number, Adobe will help you out. But there doesn’t seem to be a way to buy such a serial number/license from Adobe; or if there is, we haven’t found it yet.

Jacques
 
To answer the OP. I see no problem with using Cool Edit Pro if your friend gave you the program. It’s currently not on the market anymore. (Replaced by Audition CS5.5)

For most editing Cool Edit does the job.

It seems to me not something to get hung up about.
 
SonCatcher said:
The OP, however, was asking about a tool (not a publication) that he intends to use in his business/hobby (not academic research).
Click to expand...
The OP has a level of familiarity with CEP 2, and a comfort zone, but this OP would rather leave the comfort zone then violate what the owner rightfully has coming to them, even if the owner is a gazzilionaire like Adobe.

Reaper is quite a bit more powerful than CEP 2, and it is more reasonable than Adobe Audition, and I now understand Reaper’s language and functionality a bit better, so that’s probably the way I will go. I still do not care for Reaper’s stock reverbs, but I plan on ditching artificial reverbs as much as possible. There is an old cathedral in town whose reverb’s natural decay is awesome
 
kmaaj said:
The OP has a level of familiarity with CEP 2, and a comfort zone, but this OP would rather leave the comfort zone then violate what the owner rightfully has coming to them, even if the owner is a gazzilionaire like Adobe.

Reaper is quite a bit more powerful than CEP 2, and it is more reasonable than Adobe Audition, and I now understand Reaper’s language and functionality a bit better, so that’s probably the way I will go. I still do not care for Reaper’s stock reverbs, but I plan on ditching artificial reverbs as much as possible. There is an old cathedral in town whose reverb’s natural decay is awesome
Click to expand...
Hi kmaaj:

Well I’m glad you found a program that works with you. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way for you to get your Cool Edit Pro licensed; hopefully Reaper will work out better in the long run, anyway. Good luck.

Jacques
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top