Unlike a movie theatre or Netflix, they didn't acquire a license to screen the movie. We already know that this argument doesn't work because YouTube is required to remove copyright-infringing videos. Basically, it would be legal to post anything to YouTube as long as YouTube required you to agree not to attempt to download and keep the videos. I could start a website where I put Hollywood videos online and make visitors agree that they will only watch the video and not attempt to download and retain a copy of it. If courts would accept that argument, it would open the floodgates to all kinds of legal piracy websites. The concept is that, if anyone violates the agreement and downloads the copyrighted software, Microsoft's quarrel is with them for stealing it and not with me for making it available to steal.

This an interesting idea, but I don't think it holds up legally. prior to loading a Win3.x game in a browser from the site, users would have to read the license agreement that basically says 'You agree not to steal this copy of Win3.x and/or reverse engineer the image', and they have to press 'I agree' to play. MrFlibble wrote:Wouldn't the good old 'license agreement' thing work in this case? E.g. Even if you get no response then at least you'll know that some other people should be contacted next time. Maybe they would display the same level of tolerance for potential unauthorized distribution of their legacy software with licensing Win3.1 too?Īt any rate, if you can try contacting people from MS directly, I'd say go for it. IIRC, at least once Microsoft went so far as to upload and entire software programme for free download, albeit it is intended only for those who had purchased an earlier version of that programme (Word for DOS 5.0). Or the authors of shareware programmes (of the Jim Knopf variety) cannot guarantee that the users will either register or cease to use their software after the end of the trial period. I'd say this is akin to how software companies cannot guarantee that the users will not reverse-engineer their programmes once they have legally obtained them. While you can't guarantee that you certainly can't take responsibility if someone indeed does this.

That came up when I contacted another company about a license to put their software in disk images to allow games to be playable in-browser using jDosbox. DOSGuy wrote:2) I can't guarantee that people wouldn't download the disk image and use this site as a source for free copies of Windows 3.1.

Windows 3.1 free download for dosbox