From: whs70@dancer.uucp (22501-sohl)
Subject: Re: Copyrights on netnews articles
Reply-To: whs70@dancer.UUCP ()
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 17:51:49 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.155610.2494@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> peterd@cc.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.003110.16197@iguana.uucp> merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul28.050144.17029@gtephx.UUCP> forda@gtephx.UUCP (Andrew Ford @ AGCS, Phoenix, Arizona) writes:
>>>In article <1992Jul24.185007.26058@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>, peterd@cc.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:
>>>> We have exactly such a mechanism now. It's the
>>>> "Distibution:" field of the header, and people regularly
>>>> use it to control the automated copying software to limit
>>>> distribution of their work. Thus, I would argue that the
>>>
>>>The Distribution field only determines the geographical 
>>>area which you feel is appropriate: anyone can repost that
>>>message all over the world.
>
>And are not they wrong for having done so against my
>instructions?

No.  Your "instructions" in the form of a distribution code
only serves as a guide to limit the bandwidth used around
the country.  Additionally, there are only a limited set
of "options" as I understand it.  For example you can not
indicate distribution to all of the USA with the exception of
1 or more states, etc.

 > I've clearly indicated where I think my
>posting should be going, what more do you want? If we
>offer extensions to the "Distribution:" and "Expiry:"
>fields to allow an author to specify or disallow
>additional distribution and expiry mechanisms I think it
>would bring us in line with current copyright law around
>the world and thus be a "good thing".

The NETWORK is not in violation of any copyright laws and
does not need to be brought into line.

>Remember, when Usenet goes to court and is found in
>violation of some law, it is the law that will prevail, no
>matter what the Usenet idealists might prefer. For those
>who believe in the rule of law that should not be seen as
>such a bad thing.

USENET can't be found in violation, only people and legal
entities (ie. corporations).  As I see it, the question from a court
would be directed towards the holder of the copyright to explain
why he/she expected to be able to limit distribution knowing the
manner in which USENET functions.  That's like an entertainer 
doing a public performance in a park and then saying, "I don't
allow pictures of me to be taken by people under 5 feet."  Sure
he can say it, but there's no expectation of enforceability and
compliance.

>>also note that Distribution: is broken in that a fair number of sites
>>ignore the directive in their batching control file (ie. Cnews sys:all/all)
>
>I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The fact that
>some sites are broken (ie some site admns ignore my
>distribution instructions) does not mean that I can't issue
>such instructions, nor does it mean that I've got to give
>up my rights to copyright because some people think I
>shouldn't have them. The _law_ says I have them, which is
>the important fact that will be considered when Usenet is
>taken to court.

No one argues with your copyright ownership.  The discussion is centered
on your inability to control the distribution.  Using the 1000
flyers analogy, if you made 1000 copies of a document you wrote and
you reproduced them all on green paper and gave them away, do
you really think you'd win in a court case if you found someone
ran off another 100 copies on blue paper?  The courts are not so
stuck on purely technical violations as to ignore the common
sense approach and the apparent intent of your own actions.

>I suspect that a single successful court case will sadly
>see a lot of sites go off the air for a while, and perhaps
>force a lot more to fix their broken software. It would be
>nicer if this could be avoided by convincing people that
>honouring authors' instructions on distribution is (to
>quote Wilfred Brimley) the "right thing to do", but that's
>not very likely given our experience with software
>copyright in the past.

I suspect that if anyone goes to  court to sue for a copyright
violation on one of their posts, that they will fail because the
courts will look at the nature of the network and the fact that
as the originator of the post you should have known and expected
that you have no control of the distribution once you hit the
send command.

> People usually need a reality check
>before they will act in their own self-interest and I
>suspect that one day, sooner or later, we're going to get
>it in the form of a copyright infringement lawsuit by some
>large publisher against some large Usenet providers. Not
>today, not next week, but eventually, I suspect...

If by the above you mean a large publisher that discovered
elements of their copyrighted material had been posted by "X,"
then I suggest that the violation will not be against the
network, but against "X" and I'll assume here that X is probably an
individual.  If I make 100 "illegal" copies of a software
disc, the makers of my PC are not in violation, nor is the
disk supplier.  Likewise, have you ever heard of Xerox being
successfully sued because someone used their equipment to
make bogus copies of a copyrighted article, etc.?

>It's sad, but I suspect that the frontier days are
>starting to draw to a close. I just saw the latest DNS
>survey, and we're just under one million hosts (up from
>about 730,000 in January). The number of people, and thus
>the amount of money involved, is growing exponentially and
>that means that we're getting big enough for the world to
>notice us. That means that practices that could be ignored
>in the past are going to come under increading scrutiny.
>Some will not bear up under the light and will have to be
>adjusted. Like I said, that's sad, but it's a part of
>growing up...

The same anaolgy could be made for PC usage, VCRs, etc.  Bottom
line is that the technology has not had to bend to the law,
rather the law recognizes (sooner or later) that the technology
exists and anyone that uses the technology needs to be aware
of how it works, its limitations, and its impacts on previously
easily protected intellectual property rights.

Standard Disclaimer- Any opinions, etc. are mine and NOT my employer's.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Sohl (K2UNK) BELLCORE (Bell Communications Research, Inc.)
Morristown, NJ             email via UUCP      bcr!dancer!whs70
201-829-2879 Weekdays      email via Internet  whs70@dancer.cc.bellcore.com
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing