Board Wants Uploader Charged

by Kester Cranswick
PC Computing, November 1989

A leading Melbourne bulletin board has met a brick wall in its attempts to have a subscriber prosecuted for uploading commercial copyrighted software.

Lloyd Borrett, head of MicroHelp which operates the bulletin board, PC Connection, is dissatisfied with responses to letters he wrote to software supplier Questor requesting that it take legal action against a subscriber caught unlawfully downloading one of its software programs.

On August 17, a registered user uploaded a file called Epyx California Game. Eleven others users downloaded it before it was spotted as commercial software.

The user who put the software on the system was downgraded and informed that the distributor had been notified.

"We also said we fully expected the distributor to call in the Federal Police and prosecute him," Borrett said.

Borrett gave the distributor, Questor, details of the crime. "We are offering you every means at our disposal to assist you in making an example of this individual," he wrote.

He got no response. He then sent another letter to Questor's general manager, Jim Hamilton, threatening to make the matter public if no action was taken.

Hamilton said "what should be done and what could be done" were different, and it was unlikely the matter would ever get to court.