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Discussion topic for this, comments or a sign that you want to help are
welcome.<br>
<ul>
<li> <b>Title:</b> Legal Information
</li>
<li> <b>Purpose:</b> Legal information including but not limited
to: Standard form for submitting donations, information on how to do
front door and back door acquisitions when a company goes bankrupt,
information and articles on copyright and legal issues surrounding
ownership on digital files.</li>
<li>The information information will be from three major
perspectives: companies, individual developers and archivists/curators.
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> <b>Lead:</b> <i>None</i>
</li>
<li> <b>Started:</b> N/A
</li>
</ul>
This is squarely the sharing of knowledge hidden away by lawyers.
Finding and linking to online law resources would be a good start.
Going further and getting a worldwide view, for all the parties
involved, would be a great idea.<br>
<br>
Case studies, examples from existing institutions and so forth would be
useful. There is little way for a UK project will know enough about US
laws to get something donated to them correctly, from the outset, and
it would be nice for this to provide that information, as well as help
brand new organisations.<br>
<br>
Related legal issues that could get looked at in the future might be
abandonware (specifically software that you can't find an author for),
fair use educational rights to show and display material that has been
archived, and where the laws are going in regards to videogame
preservation (keeping up to date on the legal side as it changes).<br>
<br>
There are also legal things which are not barriers to preservation, but
instead actually helpful - these need to be sought out and explained.<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
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