It seems though the person who did this repo already violated the copyright by adding these annotations to the source code, correct?

It wouldn't be a reason or validation for others doing the same, of course.

However, whatever one would choose to do, it's best not to do it in GitHub..

The creator of the repository does mention it:

> My hope is that the educational and non-profit intentions of this repository will enable it to stay hosted and available, but the original copyright holders do have the right to ask for it to be taken down, in which case I will comply without hesitation. I do hope, though, that along with the various other disassemblies and commentaries of this source, it will remain viable.

Long copyrights are a cancer in our society. Just notice the fear in his writing - "without hesitation". We're talking about a ~40 year piece of work here.

Patents last 20 years and people keep filing them in the millions. We remain an inventive species. Obviously the protection works. Why do we need to protect copyrights for near a century?

That's not fear, it's an indication of the respect in which I hold the original authors (whom I believe are still the copyright holders). If Bell or Braben asked me to take it this down, I'd roll with it. Same if Geoff Crammond asked me to take down my Aviator and Revs analyses; of course I'd comply. It's their code.

I have copyright content out there in the world (including the commentary aspects of this project), and I'd want to be able to control what happens to that too. Seems fair to me.

I admire your integrity. At the same time, these "rights" come from flawed laws. The code should no longer be "theirs".

I won't write a long and boring critique of the current copyright length, but this work should be in the public domain at this point - nobody should be entitled to ask you to take it down. It should belong to you as much as it does to them. Like Algebra and Hamlet.

It in fact belongs to humanity, as the creation of the work itself was built on top of everything that came before it.

Two reasons: lobbying and the Mouse.

The Mouse has not come back for a third round. Yet.

That is true, but that doesn't mean that someone can't do it anyway. Copyright is a right, not an obligation (unlike trademarks where enforcement is required to preserve the trademark)

If someone makes a patch and publishes it, the rightsholders do have a case against whoever published it, but that requires enforcement in the form of a C&D or a lawsuit. The rightsholder might very well decide to not do anything about it, which happens fairly commonly.

This is not a substantial barrier for making a patch like that.

> unlike trademarks where enforcement is required to preserve the trademark

That's a myth. It suits trademark lawyers and aggressive owners to pretend this is obligatory but it isn't.

Really? <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Generic_trademark...>

Yes, genericization is not actually a risk that aggressive lawyers can help you with, except in the sense that if they bankrupt you now it's not a problem any more.

Genericization occurs when more or less everybody uses your word mark instead of a generic product class. But you can't actually sue everybody. And if you chase say, popular media, it just becomes a joke - Stephen Colbert can't use the word literally everybody you know uses because his bosses will get sued, ha ha, but it doesn't stop you and it won't stop genericization from happening. Notice you won't find any courts checking that you spent enough on legal fees as otherwise you lose for inadequate enforcement. They only care that ordinary people, who you wouldn't sue anyway, used this word in a generic way.

Beyond that, it's not at all obvious that this is a problem you'd want to prevent. Why are Kleenex and Xerox so well known? It's surely not because they're unsuccessful!