From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing
Subject: Re: Net Culture assumptions! (very long!)
Date: 30 Jul 92 01:19:18 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <4ej.02fP1bxv01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> tjc50@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Terry Carroll) writes:
|In article <1992Jul23.230452.1669@gtephx.UUCP> forda@gtephx.UUCP (Andrew Ford @ AGCS, Phoenix, Arizona) writes:
|
|Your confusing what you're giving.  You're giving me a copy of a work.
|That copy is  mine.  I can sell it, give it away, and do almost anything
|I could do with any other object  (not rent it out, if it's software,
|though).  But the _copyright_ to the work remains with  you.  Don't
|confuse a copy of the work with a copyright to the work.

In particular, the person to whom you give the work may *not* make and
sell *additional* copies of the work without your permission.

(Gads, try telling a judge "I bought the book legally, so I can sell
as many copies as I want" and see how far you get!)

Really copyright is so bloody simple.  I wrote this article, so I have
the copyright in it.  I posted it, so I arranged for all of the machines
in the usenet distribution to make copies, and I have made those copies
available to all of the usenet readers.  I have *not* released my copyright
in this work.

All copying by humans , other than 'fair use' is illegal unless I give
permission to do so.

Now, given the nature of usenet, any quoting in a reply is fair use,
regardless of any copyright notice.  It is almost certain that making
a single personal copy of any article for personal use is fair use
(given the general nature of article poste on usenet).

I suspect that even making an archive copy would be considered fair
use, since I already know such activity is common.  (Also, at least in
the U.S.A., copyright law provides specifically for various categories
of carriers to make archive copies, so the principle is well established).

|> Furthermore, if you walk up to one of those copying machines in a drug
|> store and see a "work" above it with a note attached which reads "this is
|> my work -- please copy it and pass it along," do you really think the
|> owner can sue you for copyright violation for doing what he asked?
|
|No; the copyright owner gave you a license to his 106(1) right of
|reproduction and his  106(3) right of distribution.  When posting
|something on Usenet, arguably you are doing the same thing, which I think
|probably gets you to the result you want.

Or I am making the copies myself.  I like that one better.

|Two points:
|
|1 - asking everyone to take copies is not identical to putting into the
|public domain;

A very critical point, one that is often overlooked.

|> The law does not protect you from your own stupidity: if you give 
|> it away, you cannot sue for copyright infringement.
|
|If you grant a license, and it is used within the terms of the license (or
|in ways within the  law, such as fair use, first sale, etc.), you cannot
|sue for copyright infringement.  The real  bugger here is determining what
|the terms of the license are, if its an implied one.

And, of course, fair use covers alot of ground.

|But in response to your original point: No, no, no: it is not true that
|anything without a  notice is public domain.  Take a browse of Title 17,
|especially sections 102 and 401 -  406.  Placing something in the public
|domain requires an overt unambiguous act by the  copyright holder.

Absolutely.  There is no possibility of ambiguity here.  The law is
*quite* explicit, and, for a change, it is written in plain, clear English.

This is why the GNU copyleft is actually legal, and probably legally binding.
This is what allows them to give away unlimited copies, and grant unbounded
copying rights to others without losing thier copyright.


Now, CD's get into the fuzzy area.  Is that a seperate act of copying
by some other person, or is it an extension of my posting process?
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
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