From: peterd@cc.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch)
Subject: Re: NetNews/CD - USENET News Available
Organization: Bunyip Information Systems (the archie people)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 18:12:42 GMT

(BTW, is it just me, or does this thread seems to have a
greater half-life than plutonium? :-)



In article <2A6F2787.22282@noiro.acs.uci.edu> dwatanab@mothra.nts.uci.edu (Dana Watanabe) writes:
>Well...hmmm...
>
>I bet that the best thing to do about copyrights and 
>NetNews and all that..
>
>Someone who has money to waste should file suit against someone
>for copying their post and see what the courts say
>it would really settle the argument

I have only half facetiously suggested in the past that we
should collectively fund such a lawsuit as a form of
"Usenet inoculation", based upon the notion that a friendly
lawsuit would be better for us than a hostile one. I
didn't get any volunteers to be the respondent, although I
see lots of postings from people who I'd like to sentence
to a couple of years in the company of lawyers! ;-)

>(or is it just too much fun to argue and we dotn really 
>want to find out a real answer?)

No, it's more mundane than that. Up until now, there has
just not been enough money involved to make it worthwhile
for anyone pursuing a case (let's face it, would _you_ pay
for most of this stuff?!? No one else would either... :-)

I happen to suspect that this is now changing. I have
personally reviewed drafts of two man-in-the-street books
on the Internet, and have exchanged mail with the author of
another (and if I count "Zen and the Art.." as such a book
then the count goes up by one more). I'm starting to see
more and more Usenet material turning up in magazines, and
the whole Internet market is really starting to take off.

Let's assume that all these publishers are onto something
and collectively they sell one million copies of various
books in the next two years. Let's say each one retails
for say, oh $30.  That's $30 million on the table.

If, by some coincidence, each of these authors had
appropriated some of the material I've written on archie
in the past two years and run it without credit or
acknowlegement then I think I might have some sort of a
case. Further, I suspect that the potential return is
starting to get to the amount where some U.S. lawyer
would be willing to take the case on a contingency basis.

Since I'm not out of pocket if I loose, why shouldn't I
let the lawsuit proceed and perhaps be rewarded
financially for my efforts in creating and publicizing
archie over the past two years, while punishing those who
would appropriate my work for their own gain without my
permission?

Actually, I have no intention of suing anybody, but the
scenario is a plausible one, and frankly if anyone does
appropriate the writings of another for financial gain and
is successful at it, then I think the lawsuits will
inevitably follow and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I happen to endorse the concept of property rights and
this seems like the kind of thing the property laws were
created to prevent. 

(BTW, the reason I have seen those up-coming books is that
I was asked to verify the accuracy of the material on
archie, and I appreciate the gesture the various authors
in attempting to provide accurate material with suitable
credit. I don't want to malign anybody, just show how such
a lawsuit might arise in the next couple of years.)

And my own two cents? I think I own the copyright on
everything I write (including this piece) and I'm happy to
see it propagated around the Internet electronically,
provided it is made available to readers for nothing more
than the cost of reproduction and distribution. I do _not_
want to see my work turning up in the printed press, hear
it read out on the evening news or see it turned into a
Hollywood mini-series without those responsible contacting
me to arrange for the delivery of royalties and residuals
and a thank you note, plus of course to see that they
spell my name correctly.

I suspect that current copyright law is not going to have
all that much trouble dealing with this issue when it's
finally presented to the courts, and I suspect that what
will come out of it is something more like "no you can't
copy it outside of the context of an automatically
maintained bulletin board", rather than hear that there is
now some utopian world where people renounce all rights to
their work in perpetuity simply by posting it to a shared
bulletin board.

As a final aside, I see a role for groups like EFF in
helping to educate and inform lawyers and judges when this
does hit the legal system so that they are more likely to
get it near right the first time. The first couple of
cases will be critical in defining how the rest of the
world perceives this issue (we obviously are all in
agreement now, right?? :-)



				- peterd

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Peter Deutsch,
Bunyip Information Systems,     phone:  (514) 398-3709
266 Blvd Neptune,               FAX:    (514) 398-6876
Dorval, Quebec, H9S 2L4         email:  peterd@bunyip.com
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