From: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Illegal Satellite Pickups
Keywords: copyright, civil law, usenet
Date: 3 Oct 92 16:39:46 GMT
Reply-To: pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley)
Distribution: ont
Organization: Ember---private system

In article <kDi2RB3w165w@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca> Barry Hutsel
(turtle@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca) writes:

>pacolley@ember.UUCP (Paul Colley) writes:
>
>> But even if I do it unfairly, without permission, of somebody else's
>> stuff, it's NOT necessarily going to be a problem!  Without checking
>> with the owner, you can't tell if he even cares.  Even if the
>> copyright owner cares, it doesn't matter unless he does something.

I suppose I should have been explicit:  I am not advocating this,
nor do I believe it to be moral.

It was intended as an example of why the difference between "civil"
and "legal/illegal" is important, and why people should be aware
of the difference.

>                                              You do, however, leave 
>yourself open to possible law suits if, for some reason, the owner does
>decide to "care".  For example if you take someone elses ideas and then 
>claim them for your own, that person may then decide not to be so 
>agreeable to your actions.

There's also the flip side:  Even if I don't break copyright law,
somebody might sue me!  I firmly believe I am making "fair use" of
your words in this posting, and I think a court would agree with
me.

However, I *have* copied your words, and there's never been a court
case on quoting of Usenet messages, so the issue is not clear---there
is no precedent.  You might "care", you might sue, and I might
lose.  I might win.  Is morality decided by a human judge years
after the event?  No.

So I would carefully distinguish moral issues from civil law and
court cases in this country.

What is "right" or "wrong" in civil cases is much blurrier than
what is "right" or "wrong" in, say, theft.

The law says "Thou shalt not steal."

The law does NOT say "Thou shalt not break copyright".  The phrasing
is more like, "If thou does break copyright, and the copyright
owner cares, and the copyright owner sues, and the copyright owner
wins, then you will have to pay damages---which might be zero".

(And, of course, damages might be many thousands of dollars!  In
some cases statuatory damages might apply even if actual damages
are zero)

>In the situation of the satallite signals, believe me, the company 
>producing and distributing those signals does care!!

The issue is more than "do they care".

Law:  If it doesn't go to court, nobody can know what a court would
decide.  One of the mysteries of the civil court system.  Even if
the situation is identical to an earlier ruling, the fact that the
new case is at a later date can (rarely) be used to distinguish
the two cases (to "distinguish" a case is to give a court the
ability to rule differently)

Morality:  The morality of displaying electromagetic signals that
are already in your living room is beyond the scope of this posting.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above is what I wanted to address.

The following is what I would rather have avoided starting a debate
on.  But, with courage, I face the wall of flames:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>        --Barry          Copyright C 1992
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Out of curiosity, how do you think I was able to read your posting?

Answer: There was a COPY on my machine.

Why was the copy on my machine?  You posted your article to
ont.general.

How did that copy get on my machine?  WHO did the copying?  In
short, who are you going to sue for breaking your copyright?

Answer:  Nobody broke your copyright, your actions (and you are
the author in this case) resulted in the copies occuring---you did
the copying.  If you posted something that belonged to somebody
else, then it was you (the poster) who violated the copyright, and
not Steve Frampton and I who arranged for our computers to copy
postings in ont.general from Vicuna to Ember.

That's why I said the issue about copyright on Usenet is vague,
because Usenet is fundamentally a bunch of copiers madly making
duplicates of everything posted.

If an author feeds his story into a photocopier, he can't sue the
owner of the photocopier for copyright infringement.  Usenet is
the most impressive copier ever cobbled together, but it is still
the person who puts the original in the front end who is responsible
for the copies that come out the back, not the owner of the
photocopier.

My opinion:

	The poster of an article has explicitly caused the copying
	of the article to all sites that get the article, and has
	implicitly requested that the article be widely distributed
	in its entirety.  In short, the poster has given up his
	right to control the "copying" of the work, to the same
	extent as if the title page of a novel said "I, the author,
	request everyone to make and distribute as many verbatim
	copies of this as they wish".  If the poster does not have
	the right to copy the work, then the poster has violated
	copyright, not the owners of the computers which propogated
	the poster's posting.

	However, copyright covers other "rights" besides the "right
	to copy", and I believe the poster retains those rights:
	The right to derivative works (in layman's terms, "the
	movie rights"), the right to be identified as the author,
	the right to publically perform the work, etc.

But this has been debated to death before in other groups, and has
not been settled.  I have stated my *opinion*, and I freely admit
that reasonable people may research copyright law and reach other
conclusions.  In previous debates, there have been substantial
numbers of people who disagree with my first paragraph, and
substantial numbers of people who disagree with my second paragraph.
So far, nobody has disagreed with both paragraphs, so I guess I'm
at least half right :-)

(There are even substantial numbers of people who agree with both
paragraphs!  Wow...)

The best conclusion I can offer is that there hasn't been a court
case yet, so nobody really knows.

- Paul Colley
University:  colley@qucis.queensu.ca
Home:        pacolley@ember.uucp   watmath!ember!pacolley  +1 613 545 3807
"Imminent death of the net predicted:  No news at 11"

Newsgroups: ont.general