tanner@cdis-1.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) (07/28/89)
In article <Jul.27.12.54.26.1989.1160@rutgers.rutgers.edu>, uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project) writes:
) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used
) # without a specific written autorization.
It appears that this silly restriction is spreading! Postmasters
are encouraged to do the following.
(a) Remove maps for greece immed to avoid copyright problems. Until
you can manage to get an "autorization" (note: authorization won't
do) you are leaving yourself open to visits from lawyers.
(b) Post to the net asking for the address to write if you wish
permission to use the map. This will win you a lot of friends.
No, I don't know why an address isn't posted along with the map.
(c) Ask yourselves why a normally-sane person such as Mel Pleasant
at Rutgers would approve the posting of an article whose content
may not legally be used.
(d) Beware of gifts bearing greeks...
--
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!cdis-1!tanner ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!tanner
or... {allegra attctc gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!cdis-1!tannerrjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin) (07/30/89)
>) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used >) # without a specific written autorization. > >It appears that this silly restriction is spreading! Postmasters >are encouraged to do the following. This is gonna get fun once all the floodgates open up with questions about copyright legalities, usage and distribution legalities. What makes it more fun? It's international. Whee! All I know for certain is that I can't stand around downtown and distribute pamphlets with useful information in it, but with a copyright against authorized usage. Well, I can, but the moment I try to sue someone for using that information, I'll probably get laughed out of court. In any case, these maps come to me, through established public (that in itself is probably an important word) distribution channels (ah, a nice important phrase :-) that is known by the map coordinators to be a primarily automated system. I won't say these maps are unsolicited, as I haven't turned off reception since I find them useful for my needs, but on the other hand, I don't have to actually request them. In my opinions, these things are just like copyrighted television material that bombards me on 60 useless cable channels. I can use them for my own needs. And I do. Redistribution? This might be an interesting topic. Or not. (Who wants to really attack the legal nitty gritty of this? I don't... I'll just sit back and watch... :-) Now, what would happen if I copyrighted this message and specifically state that no one in Europe could redistribute or use any portion of this message without my written approval? >(a) Remove maps for greece immed to avoid copyright problems. Until >you can manage to get an "autorization" (note: authorization won't >do) you are leaving yourself open to visits from lawyers. I really think it takes more than just an arbitrary copyright notice to bring lawyers to your door. The maps were distributed on a public system with known distribution. That's going to weigh against any legal issues. Not knowing enough about domestic copyright laws, and less about international copyright laws, it may take a little more than just a statement to actually make the copyright legal ... or enforceable. -- ________Robert J. Granvin________ INTERNET: rjg@sialis.mn.org ____National Computer Systems____ BITNET: rjg%sialis.mn.org@cs.umn.edu __National Information Services__ UUCP: ...amdahl!bungia!sialis!rjg "Scotty! I've gotta have motor functions in three minutes or we're all dead!"
mhyman@hsfmsh.UUCP (Marco S. Hyman) (07/31/89)
In article <Jul.27.12.54.26.1989.1160@rutgers.rutgers.edu>, uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project) writes:
) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used
) # without a specific written autorization.
So where are all the legal types when you need them.
As once explained to me by a lawyer A Copyright give the Copyright holder
several rights, including:
- The exclusive right to make copies
- The exclusive right to distribute copies
- The exclusive right to prepare derivative works
There are a few other rights that have to do with plays and films. None
of the rights (that I'm aware of) give the copyright holder the right to
control the USE of the information.
Think about it - You can not COPY the information from a copyrighted map
(which implies that it can not be redistributed) but you can USE the
information in any way you can think of. Just like a book.
Therefore the copyright statement does nothing toward stopping the unwanted
use of the maps.
Am I right? Is this much ado about nothing?
--marc
--
//Marco S. Hyman
//UUCP: ...!sun!sfsun!hsfmsh!mhyman
//Domain: sfsun!hsfmsh!mhyman@sun.comclewis@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) (08/01/89)
In article <1146@hsfmsh.UUCP> mhyman@hsfmsh.UUCP (Marco S. Hyman) writes: >In article <Jul.27.12.54.26.1989.1160@rutgers.rutgers.edu>, uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project) writes: >) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used >) # without a specific written autorization. > >So where are all the legal types when you need them. > >As once explained to me by a lawyer A Copyright give the Copyright holder >several rights, including: > - The exclusive right to make copies > - The exclusive right to distribute copies > - The exclusive right to prepare derivative works > >Think about it - You can not COPY the information from a copyrighted map >(which implies that it can not be redistributed) but you can USE the >information in any way you can think of. Just like a book. > >Therefore the copyright statement does nothing toward stopping the unwanted >use of the maps. There's a number of things to consider: 1) if something like this ever came to court, what chances are there that the judge would: a) be given accurate information of what we're talking about. (instead of being totally confused and obfuscated by the lawyers) b) be capable of understanding what what we're talking about. c) reasonably apply legal principles to what we're talking about. 2) The copyright notice doesn't explicitly permit anything. Thus, one might ask whether any uses of any kind are permitted (except possibly a human reading it, as in a "book"). 3) Depending upon interpretation of the three rights above, you may find that anybody permitting that map to come onto their machine is in violation of all three: a) exclusive right to make copies: from a technical standpoint, by the time that a map makes it into the map unpacking directory, it is copied one heck of a lot - this is probably a minimal list: - into the spool directory on the sending machine. - into your spool directory. - into the rnews unpacking area. - into an temporary for uncompress - into the news spool directory - into the map unpacking directory. (I know that this is silly, but from a purely legal standpoint, this may count as a violation.) b) exclusive right to distribute - this one's obvious. c) prepare derivitive works - using pathalias to generate a paths database is a derivitive work. If anything, the only possible permitted use would be for a human being to read it (normally a useless exercise). So, distributing maps with such blanket coverage copyright notices is a waste of bandwidth. All the copyright notice needed to say was something like: Permission is hereby granted for the redistribution and use of this information for the routing of electronic mail. Any profit-oriented commercial use (eg: advertising mailing lists) is expressly prohibited without written authorization. Then I certainly wouldn't have complained. -- Chris Lewis, R.H. Lathwell & Associates: Elegant Communications Inc. UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo}!lsuc!eci386!clewis Phone: (416)-595-5425
hassinger@lmrc.uucp (Bob Hassinger) (08/02/89)
In article <1146@hsfmsh.UUCP>, mhyman@hsfmsh.UUCP (Marco S. Hyman) writes: > In article <Jul.27.12.54.26.1989.1160@rutgers.rutgers.edu>, uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project) writes: > ) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used > ) # without a specific written autorization. ... > control the USE of the information. > > Think about it - You can not COPY the information from a copyrighted map > (which implies that it can not be redistributed) but you can USE the > information in any way you can think of. Just like a book. > > Therefore the copyright statement does nothing toward stopping the unwanted > use of the maps. Is it not true that when someone uses the map on their machine it may fall under this "fair use" interpretation, but when they allow their system to pass on the information to others they are, in effect, making copies, which *is* a right reserved to the copyright owner? I thought the point of the original posting was that as a matter of principle this sort of copyright restriction places those who pass News on to other sites in an awkward position at best and so the practice should be discouraged. Bob Hassinger ...uunet!lmrc!hassinger
kdg@nirvo.uucp (Kurt Gollhardt) (08/06/89)
In article <37@lmrc.uucp> hassinger@lmrc.uucp (Bob Hassinger) writes: >> In article <Jul.27.12.54.26.1989.1160@rutgers.rutgers.edu>, uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project) writes: >> ) # This information is copyright (c) 1989 by EUUG and may not be used >> ) # without a specific written autorization. > ... > >Is it not true that when someone uses the map on their machine it may fall >under this "fair use" interpretation, but when they allow their system to pass >on the information to others they are, in effect, making copies, which *is* a >right reserved to the copyright owner? > >I thought the point of the original posting was that as a matter of principle >this sort of copyright restriction places those who pass News on to other sites >in an awkward position at best and so the practice should be discouraged. I agree that such copyright notices should be changed, but only because they are unclear. I don't think, even as they are currently written, that they prevent usenet sites from using them as map data, nor do they prevent these sites from sending the maps on to other usenet sites. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.) My reasoning is as follows: Sending the maps to another site does not constitute unauthorized copying; it is part of the distribution method. EUUG published the copyrighted material by posting it to the net (or by passing it to the Mapping Project to post to the net, which is equivalent). The net is a broadcast medium (it's irrelevant that part of the underlying transport mechanism is point-to-point rather than broadcast). Posting something to the net means that it will (eventually) be distributed to all usenet sites (actually, the subset identified by the Distribution field) and made available to all of that site's users. This is the *expected* distribution of anything posted on usenet. The situation is analagous to television transmissions. Television programs are generally copyrighted. But station WFOO in North Dakota, which is a member of a television network - say, ABC - doesn't get authorization from the program's author in order to "copy" it to all of their viewers, or to pass it on to station WBAR, another ABC station. The program's author publishes it by giving a copy to ABC. ABC gets it to all of their stations, whether it's by satellite broadcast, station-to-station microwave links, or by making *duplicate tapes* and delivering them to each of the stations. The individual stations then, somehow, get the program to each of their viewers. None of this consitutes "copying" in violation of the copyright. The author "posts" the program to ABC and *expects* it to (eventually) reach all of the millions of ABC viewers. It is not until the edges of this distribution that the copyright restrictions come into effect. Once it reaches the viewer's TV sets, if they tape it and give/sell the tape to someone else, or worse, distribute it on some other broadcast medium, *that* is a copyright violation. A similar situation holds for newspapers and magazines. And *USENET*. The point is that someone publishes a copyrighted work to an *intended audi- ence*. Any "copying" needed to reach that intended audience, and any personal use that audience makes of the material, is the intended use of the material and does not violate the copyright. Any distribution outside of this audience, or by any other medium, *would* be a violation, if not auth- orized. Getting back to the maps, this means (assuming the above is all correct) that you can distribute the maps to other usenet sites and you can use them in map databases on your site, but you can't print them up in a booklet and you probably can't email them to some random user. On the other hand, none of this directly explains how the copyright would achieve its intended effect of preventing use of the maps for mailing lists. My guess is this would be considered (attempting to) make money off of the copyrighted material, which, while not strictly copying, perhaps falls under the copyright protections (because it's not "personal" use). This would be similar to the case of published plays. Even if copies of the play are purchased for each member of the cast, if it is performed for a paying audi- ence, authorization is supposed to be obtained (which usually involves paying royalties). -- Kurt Gollhardt \ Nirvonics, Inc. -- Plainfield, NJ Kurt.Gollhardt@nirvo.uucp /\ Software Design and Consulting ...!rutgers!nirvo!Kurt.Gollhardt / \ "It's all about people; not you and me or him and her, but *us*."