No ending beeing the target of legal actions doesn’t makes a wrong action any better.

Not that I’m advocating breaking the law, but I’m certainly sympathetic to the position that Dane has been put in WRT TuneTracker. With the exception of the handful of places that still offer copies of R5 Pro, there’s not any entirely legal way to run TuneTracker: ZETA is questionable for obvious reasons, Haiku isn’t complete/stable enough at this point, and the PE license prohibits use for commercial purposes (which would rule out most installations of TuneTracker, I imagine).

Also, I’m not sure if it applies to IP law, but in criminal law there’s a concept known as “de minimis” – basically, the idea is that some crimes, while still technically illegal, are so trivial as to not be worth the effort to punish. At this point, I think there is every indication that Access simply doesn’t care.

Don’t do what you’re not entitled to do.

I believe this sends the wrong message to people, specially to “outsiders”.

There’s already discussions going on at the Haiku mailing lists whether or not this is legal.

I would guess “probably not” – but the more relevant detail (IMHO at least) is whether or not there is any likelihood of Access doing anything about it. I would guess that “probably not” is the answer to that question as well, at least based on the semi-official stance Access has taken regarding BeOSMax.

And these days, after Palm/Access has had ownership of the Be IP for the better part of a decade (and have made absolutely no use of it in released products), I suspect we’ve long passed the point at which taking legal action regarding BeOS IP would cost more than it would be worth.