And Now, Abandonware

I've noted twice before instances under which I'll "violate" current copyright law. Here's another.

Emily has a teacher friend who helped her out by giving her hundreds of 1st grade lesson plans, homework packets, and other teaching resources. Sadly, the vast majority of these files were created in AppleWorks, the previous incarnation of Apple's iWork line, which was abandoned by Apple about two years ago.

Hmm. Maybe if we just open the files in a text editor. Gobbledigook.

Hmm. Maybe we could just try Word or OpenOffice. Looks like the quadratic formula exploded.

No problem, I thought. Hit up cometdocs.com and convert the files to .doc's. Might take awhile, but it's do able.

No go. Cometdocs can't do it. And there does not exist a free converter for .cwk files.

Why free, you ask?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution gives the purpose of copyright and patents:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The purpose is to promote progress; that's the goal. How? Secure monetary incentive for discoveries for a limited time. This provides creators with a reason to create, protects the incentive, and ultimately moves technology forward. The Founders were Inspired Men.

So what money is Apple making from AppleWorks? ...I'm sure if it existed, they'd find it.

Enter Google. A few torrent searches, a 20 minute download, and TA-DA, AppleWorks is up and running.

Need AppleWorks? Grab the torrent here.