Who owns old icons?

[Rick Harrison]

Unless Apple, Inc. has put all of HyperCard into the public domain,
the HyperCard icons are still owned by Apple, Inc.

According to www.wikipedia.org:

"The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 – alternatively known  
as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or  
pejoratively as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright  
terms in the United States by 20 years. Before the Act (under the  
Copyright Act of 1976), copyright would last for the life of the  
author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship;  
the Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and  
for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95  
years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.[1] The Act  
also affected copyright terms for copyrighted works published prior to  
January 1, 1978, also increasing their term of protection by 20 years,  
to a total of 95 years from publication."

Unless you can either confirm that Apple, Inc. has put
HyperCard into the public domain, or you have obtained
permission from the Apple, Inc. legal department, you
cannot do what you want with those icons.

Yes, I know it seems terrible, but if you were Apple, Inc.
I'm sure you would want to protect your under used icons too.
After all Apple might want to consider using them for some
different application in the future.

wikipedia.org has a lot more information about copyright,
and I suggest that anyone who is interested to check it out.