[NTLK] Copyright issues...

[Ed Kummel]

Hey Frank,
I don't want to alienate you or nothing...especially with your immense contribution to the Newtontalk community, but I think you need to come up with a new analogy for the one below.

Indeed, I have acquired several cars using the exact method you outline below.

According to the law where *I* live, if you identify a vehicle (or any private property) that seems to be abandoned, you  can acquire the property as long as you can prove that you have made an attempt to contact the owner and inform them of your intentions. 

In one instance, I identified a car I wanted in order to get some hard to get parts off of it to fix up my own classic car I was restoring. The car was in a grocery store parking lot. I got a signed document from the owner of the store allowing me to take the responsibility for removing this vehicle from his property. I towed the car to my house, using the VIN, I petitioned the DMV for the vehicle owner's address, sent a registered letter to the owner's last known address, and waited. 30 days later, I had not heard from the owner, so I had a car to disassemble and reuse. All perfectly legal and it only cost me the $3 for the registered letter. 

Ed
web/gadget guru
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By Richard Feynman, Physicist, Nobel winner (1918-1988)



"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

--- On Sun, 1/17/10, Frank Gruendel <newtontalk at pda-soft.de> wrote:

From: Frank Gruendel <newtontalk at pda-soft.de>
Subject: [NTLK] Copyright issues...
To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
Date: Sunday, January 17, 2010, 2:25 PM

<snip>

But if I happen to come across such a car somewhere, this doesn't give me the right to just take it
home and use it. Even if I've done my utmost for years to get in touch with the owner. Even if it is
obviously abandoned. Even if it has been decaying on its driveway for the last two decades. Even if
I write a check and put it in the postbox next to the driveway. If I take it, it's theft. Period.

<snip>