Public Domain Houses

redblade · 22 March 2019, 19:42

Hi.
I see a lot of these advertised in the Amiga magazines. Were these quite profitable businesses? Did any one on this site run one? I know the fish disk collection is useful.

Thanks.

-Acid- · 22 March 2019, 21:55

You'd have to think there was money in it or there wouldn't have been so many of them (with the money to advertise in print magazines as well).

AmigaHope · 23 March 2019, 08:13

The funny thing is that in reality the public domain doesn't really exist for software. You can issue a public license for your software but ever since the 70's/80's you can't really give up copyright (you can always change your mind later and only existing copies can be copied under whatever license you released them under). People had a lot of misunderstanding (and they still do) of what "public domain" actually means.

The funniest thing was the UK phenomenon of "License-ware". Which was really just commercial software. It just had a different name because in this case the publisher and distributor were companies that normally specialized in distributing shareware/freeware stuff.

But yeah there was a fair amount of money in selling the service of copying/packing/shipping disks containing material that you paid nothing for. It wouldn't make anyone rich, but it would definitely get the bills paid.

redblade · 08 December 2019, 09:32

Found this article on atarimania.com in Atari ST Format when I was looking for the bullfrog Assembler tutorial.
Atari ST Format issue 25
Pages 113, 115, 117. He had 30,000 customers and had 6 employees in August 1991.

22 March 2019, 19:42	#1
redblade Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Middle Earth Age: 40 Posts: 2,127	Public Domain Houses Hi. I see a lot of these advertised in the Amiga magazines. Were these quite profitable businesses? Did any one on this site run one? I know the fish disk collection is useful. Thanks.

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22 March 2019, 21:55	#2
-Acid- Registered User Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: South Shields Posts: 812	You'd have to think there was money in it or there wouldn't have been so many of them (with the money to advertise in print magazines as well).

23 March 2019, 08:13	#3
AmigaHope Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: New Sandusky Posts: 942	The funny thing is that in reality the public domain doesn't really exist for software. You can issue a public license for your software but ever since the 70's/80's you can't really give up copyright (you can always change your mind later and only existing copies can be copied under whatever license you released them under). People had a lot of misunderstanding (and they still do) of what "public domain" actually means. The funniest thing was the UK phenomenon of "License-ware". Which was really just commercial software. It just had a different name because in this case the publisher and distributor were companies that normally specialized in distributing shareware/freeware stuff. But yeah there was a fair amount of money in selling the service of copying/packing/shipping disks containing material that you paid nothing for. It wouldn't make anyone rich, but it would definitely get the bills paid.

08 December 2019, 09:32	#4
redblade Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Middle Earth Age: 40 Posts: 2,127	Found this article on atarimania.com in Atari ST Format when I was looking for the bullfrog Assembler tutorial. Atari ST Format issue 25 Pages 113, 115, 117. He had 30,000 customers and had 6 employees in August 1991.

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