[net.general] Massive copyright violations on the net

tim (12/06/82)

It is very common for people who find some piece of prose pleasing
to post it to the net. Most commonly, these are reviews of books, but
I have seen entire essays and such posted. Although the motivations
of the people who do this are admirable, it is past time for someone
to point out the following:

This is a crime. It is a crime to publish or in any way reproduce for
public consumption such copyrighted materials without explicit
permission. It is also a crime to rebroadcast knowingly such materials.
All sites which broadcast these are guilty.

This may seem like a minor crime, since no one is making any money from
it. This is a false impression. Place yourself in the position of the
writer who lives from day to day on the earnings of his or her writing.
These people are not, like most net contributors, people who play around
with writing, people who have a neat idea and casually decide to share
it with people, but professional craftsmen. To infringe on their
copyrights this way is to steal from them. If you have sufficient respect
for the writer that you wish to share his or her work, then have enough
respect not to steal from them. Many writers would probably not object
to the posting if you asked, but please do ask. Write in care of the
publisher, or get a phone number from the publisher (or the phone book).
Show some consideration; suppose someone were to take a piece of your
commercially distributed software and post it. Thank you for reading this.

						Tim Maroney
						unc!tim