wa263@sdcc12.UUCP (bookmark) (08/23/85)
<- bug snack This article is a somewhat modified version of a letter that I sent in reply to an inquiry from another net user about the article that I posted earlier concerning the copyright a writer holds on a personal letter, or any correspondence. I was asked what I knew about copyrights to net mail or netnews articles. So herebelow are my speculations on the subject. This article copyright (c) 1985 by Mark Seecof, all rights reserved. Non-exclusive permission is hereby granted to all USENET and ARPAnet sites and users to reproduce this article in whole or in part for the purpose of free distribution to others, provided that the copyright notice above and this notice are included in any reproduction, and that no portion of this article is reproduced for profit without the specific written permission of Mark Seecof. _____________________ I really don't know the answer to that (whether email or netnews is copyright protected). Personally I suspect that nobody knows the answer. I haven't heard about any litigation on the subject, and the last revision to the U.S. copyright law that concerned computers was to clarify copyright protection of software (it said that copyrights are good even if the software is in ROM and even if it controls hardware at a low level, i.e. even microcode can be copyrighted. However, the lawful owner of a copy of software has the right to make backup copies for his own use, or put multiple copies on a disk, etc. but not to sell these unless he sells the whole shebang, original copy and all derivatives). I think that one could make a strong claim to an email copyright. After all, it's text in tangible form, and by sending it to one or a few people you are not placing it in the public domain. The fact that several copies of the message may be generated while it passes through the net is not a problem; copyrights survive (for instance) passing through the multiple hands and teletypes of the Western Union telegraph service. Of course, we won't REALLY know until somebody sues over a violation and we see if the courts agree with my interpretation. (I am quite sure that the federal wiretap statute covers interception of the letter en route, though.) Copyright over netnews articles is a murkier prospect. I think that one could make a claim to have retained all rights to publication in other forums. For instance, an author can sell ``first North American serial rights'' for a novel to some magazine while retaining exclusive rights to book publication. I think posting to the net certainly grants all net sites a non-exclusive right to reproduce the article, and share it with users and other sites; but it doesn't necessarily place the article in the public domain. I suspect that the proper inclusion of a copyright notice might be crucial to sustaining a suit on these premises. (A proper copyright notice is one with the word ``copyright'' or the abbreviation ``copr.'' or the c-in-a-circle mark, the year date, and the name of the copyright holder. Other abbreviations aren't good enough. The validity of (c) substituting for a c-in-a-circle hasn't been tested TO MY KNOWLEDGE--but it's only needed for the various international copyright coventions, anyway. If the thing's going to South America, it ought to have ``All rights reserved'' on it too.) One could certainly put a special notice of rights granted in the text. For instance, you could grant to all the right to reproduce the text only if they distributed it for free and kept your copyright notice in the text. Then you would retain the rights to reproduction for profit. I'm pretty sure that it is a copyright offense to take someone's copyright work and post it to the net without permission. Of course, the ``fair use'' exception holds... it's okay to quote or summarize, or (a slightly different case) use a copy for research (ie. type a book into a computer so that you can count the syllables and number of female-gender pronouns). These are my opinions and and speculations on the subject, but again-- I don't have any specific ``real'' (based on statute or case law) answers. I do believe that these questions will eventually come up in the courts. A side question that I think has real implications: what duty do computer owners have to maintain the privacy of text stored on or passing through their system? Are outfits like MCI mail common carriers like Western Union? How about Compuserve? How about a net site that handles mail for free, but without specially disclaiming the net-traffic's expectation of privacy? Note: It's not a defense to a copyright infringement suit that the text in question has been altered or translated. Ownership of a work isn't lost in translation. So it's no more lawful to distribute Huffman-coded copies of ``The Hunt for Red October'' than straight ones. bookmark