> > As a practical matter, "what's the right thing to do?"
> > comes much sooner
> > in my decision tree than "what can I get away with?"
>   If you find a diamond ring on the sidewalk, you take it to police and
> they see if anyone claims it.  The equivalent of looking for the
> copyright owner.  If nobody shows up, my understanding is that they give
> it back to you.  Tossing it in the trash so it benefits nobody would be
> immoral waste, IMHO.

True.  On the other hand, if it's software, not a ring, and it's labeled

    Copyright 1973 Wes Groleau. All rights reserved.
    Reproduction prohibited without written permission
    from Wes Groleau.

and you can't find Wes Groleau anywhere, then you have to ask yourself
"What's the right thing to do?"  (or "what can I get away with?" if that's
your ethical approach).

You might conclude the right thing to do is to violate the letter of
the restriction because following it would be an immoral waste.

(In case anyone asks, such a notice appears on nothing I've ever written
and probably won't appear on anything I ever write except for
hypotheticals like this.)

--
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau