From: phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marketplace
Subject: Re: softcopy comic price guide information wanted!
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:45:27 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug12.124745.10941@cas.org> wsm26@cas.org (Wayne Mills) writes:
>In article <1992Aug11.214620.13087@u.washington.edu>, phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus) writes:
>|>      This would probably be a good time to note that Overstreet is a 
>|> copyrighted work.  Posting brief portions of it (like the comparison of
>|> Spiderman prices someone posted recently, or posting the guide prices of comics
>|> you're selling) is probably okay under the "fair use" clause of the copyright
>|> law, but reproducing any large portion of it would be illegal, and doing so in
>|> this forum could land us all in deep trouble.
>Actually the copyright notice in Overstreet says that "no part of this book
>may be reproduced in any form... without prior written consent".  So
>technically you should argue that even the brief portion posted previously 
>would be illegal.

     Overstreet can say whatever they want, but just because they say you can't
do something doesn't mean you can't, unless they start doing like the software
manufacturers do and licensing their books instead of selling them :) ).  It's
the copyright law that dictates what you can and cannot do with a copyrighted
work, not the copyright holder (well, the copyright holder can permit you to
do things that you normally couldn't, but cannot forbid you from doing things
that you normally could).

>OPU #16 says Angel and the Ape #1 is worth $11!  Aargh!  I've just
>violated the Overstreet copyright!  Oh no, here they come to take me away!
>:-)  :-)

     They'll never prove it was you.  Just say someone forged your posting.
Or else say you were reviewing OPU16 and call it fair use. :)

>I'm no lawyer, but I feel that the use I am planning to make of the data
>constitutes a fair use of the information I have purchased.  If not, then
>you're taking the position that anyone who looks up a value in Overstreet
>for a comic he owns, and then records that information in a database or
>even just in a notebook, is violating the copyright!  If you don't then you're
>just drawing the line where it's convenient for yourself and your uses.
>I don't feel that copyrights are meant to be taken to this extreme.  Their
>purpose is to prevent the author from being ripped off, having his profit
>or his work stolen and/or in some way damaging the author -- say by publishing
>a competing price guide.  Which would include disseminating large amounts
>of softcopy price guide information to folks who haven't purchased the
>price guide.

     There's a very tricky legal line being crossed here.  When I buy
a copyrighted work, I'm entitled to use it in basically any manner I
see fit, for my own personal use.  This means that I have the right to
make an archival backup copy, to change the form the information is
stored on (for example, moving information from a book to a computer,
or onto microfilm, or whatever).  If you buy the same copyrighted
work, you're entitled to do the same things.  But, if I, say, have
Overstreet in a computerized form, even though you as a copyright
holder would have the right to that computerized information if you
entered it yourself, I do *not* have the right to sell or give that
information without the permission of the copyright holder.  In you other
words, redistributing substantial portions of a copyrighted work, in
any form, is illegal without the copyright holder's permission, even in
the case of redistributing it from one owner of that work to another. 
I'm not saying this is fair or right, but that's the way the law is
written.  So there is indeed a big legal difference between someone
computerizing some of the Overstreet info and them giving that info to
you; I'm not just "drawing lines where it's convenient for me."

>Now if I entered Overstreet information and then posted that I was going
>to sell it on floppies for $5 ppd then I'd imagine there'd be a good number
>of people reading that post who'd drop a line to Overstreet alerting them
>to the illegal ripoff going on.  And soon I'd be in deep doo-doo.

     This is a common misconception.  It's just as illegal to give
copyrighted information away as it is to sell it, though admittedly
copyright holders are much more likely to go after those who sell it.

>All I want
>to do is transfer the information my OPU contains into a softcopy file from
>which I can then use a program I've written to read the price information
>for many comics from my comic inventory.  This is merely a labor saving
>proposition.  

     This is a very good idea, and I wish you luck with it.  All I'm saying
it that you technically need the permission of Overstreet Publications before
you can go ahead with it, other than by typing or scanning the info in
yourself.  Their address is on the bottom of page 2 of the Update, just to
the right of the "Absolutely no part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, mechanically, photographically or electronically without prior written
consent of the publisher" notice. :)  Heck, fax them your request; with any
luck they'll say okay and fax their approval back, and you'll have your
written consent today.  Then we can all make copies of the consent letter and
we'll be in business. :) :) :)
     (Trust me, I'm normally not this legally nit-picky, but being a computer
science major, copyrights are a dear point to me.)
-- 
Internet: phaedrus@u.washington.edu        (University of Washington, Seattle)
 "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs,
    consider an exciting career as a guillotine operator!"