hdt@sunybcs.UUCP (Howard D. Trachtman) (03/21/84)
While posting the lyrics to eat it may have been a violation of
the copywrite, I don't think that the owners would prosecute.
When Beat It came out it boosted the sales of Thriller by quite
a bit. With Eat it, there is a good chance that someone who gets
the lyrics on the network will decide to buy the Weird Al's record.
Weird Al doesn't lose anything in any case, as he doesn't *sell*
the actual lyrics, he sells the records. If he or the owner of
the copywrite were to sue, they would have to prove damages, which
might be difficult.
Howard D. Trachtman SUNY/Buffalo
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Howard D. Trachtman SUNY/Buffalo
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Tonawanda, NY 14150-5545 (use them all, if you dare)johnl@haddock.UUCP (03/24/84)
#R:sunybcs:-124500:haddock:11500002:000:532 haddock!johnl Mar 23 15:50:00 1984 The original comment about copyright infringement by net users is quite correct. Particularly where music is concerned, there is no need to show financial damages to prove copyright infringement, just that unauthorized copying took place. Considerable fines have been imposed in cases where all parties agreed that financial gain by the infringer was not an issue. See C. N. Mooers' article in the March 1975 Computing Surveys. So please, let's clean up our act. Further discussion in net.legal, please. John Levine, ima!johnl