roy@phri.UUCP (07/15/86)
In article <451@hplabsc.UUCP> hplabs!taylor writes: [An interesting article about a MacIntosh computer used in a courtroom.] > (above, without permission, from A+ Magazine, August '86, page 16, > column News and Views, by Frederic E. Davis) Since the recent brou-ha about the "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" story posted to net.comics (I think that's where it was), I've been more atune to the posting of copyrighted material. I was somewhat surprised to see the above-quoted article this morning in, of all places, a moderated news group. I don't know why people think that citing a source and then adding "reprinted without permission" makes it all right to violate copyright. If I steal some money from you, but then am careful to let people know who it really belongs to when I spend it, have I lessened the crime any? Why am I especially surprised to see it in a moderated group? One of the reasons people are pushing mod groups (although not the major advantage over net groups in my opinion) is so when (and if) stargate becomes a reality, there will be somebody at the controls to prevent exactly this sort of bad posting practice that might cause legal problems. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (07/15/86)
In article <2389@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > In article <451@hplabsc.UUCP> hplabs!taylor writes: > [An interesting article about a MacIntosh computer used in a courtroom.] > > (above, without permission, from A+ Magazine, August '86, page 16, > > column News and Views, by Frederic E. Davis) > > Since the recent brou-ha about the "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" > story posted to net.comics (I think that's where it was), I've been more > atune to the posting of copyrighted material. I was somewhat surprised to > see the above-quoted article this morning in, of all places, a moderated > news group. > Given that Dave (hplabs!taylor) was not the original author, but I, let me jump up and confess/explain. (And this is not going to be a legal argument over copyrights and lost revenues) I'm in the habbit of giving references of the sources where I gather my information, both to give credit and to cover myself to indicate that I do not take it on to guarantee the correctness of the information. In the above case, I had the option (other than not bringing the information to your - the net's - attention) to summarize or reword the paragraph, but I prefered to pass it on pretty much verbatim. So, at the end, I went over- board and stated "above, without permission", rather than something like "I got this information from ..". I did this, in a way, because I am very much aware of the problem, and I wanted to put the moderator on the alert to evaluate if what I typed in (a brief news item) was more than should be quoted. In a way I stood up and said: "I think it's ok (as I am doing it) but I am not sure if it's 'totally legal'" .... It's kind of the old "if you have to ask, the answer is NO" aspect of life. I quite often and liberally type in excerpts (I don't really have time to type in more) of items in print, and I always make a little extra effort to encourage the reader to buy his own copy of the "complete" original. In that sense, I feel that the interested reader will say: "hey, I might have missed this piece of information; maybe I should get this magazine." Now I don't care to have a discussion or argument about this, it is a matter of individual case-by-case evaluation, and I have no doubt that there will always be someone that would do things different. Such is life. Walking a legal-tightrope has kind of become an aspect of life, it seems. When you drive your car, fill out your tax-forms, even if you should forget to check what the laws are like in the particular state that you happen to spend your honeymoon vacation in .... ((-: In summary, I share your concern, and I do try to adjust my postings to stay within the envelope of current generally accepted net-etiquette. I hope, that I did not, accidentally, step over the line. Please also note, that my posting was done not on USENET, but propagated here, automatically, in the case of gatewayed news-groups INFO-MAC, INFO-LAW, and HUMAN-NETS, and, in the case of mod.comp-soc, it was manually picked up. We used to have the problem that articles considered inappropriate were propagating through gateways into the ARPAnet, and folks there huffing and puffing about the 'low-lives' on USENET ... Let's hope, with this StarGate, we don't see an over-reaction in this corner of 'World-Net' - otherwise, I'd rather say "to hell" with the commercial and lawyer world we have to deal with to be able to have Stargate as presently perceived. Actually, from all I pick up about it, that is, pretty much, already my conclusion. I'm afraid, what is going to come through Stargate will have not much similarity to what we have become accustomed to over the years. So be it. There should be enough opportunity to network with local phone-calls now with the increasing number of machines everywhere. But, there definitely are good reasons to go ahead with Stargate, so I'm not knocking it at all. But it will be a rich man's network .... > > I don't know why people think that citing a source and then adding > "reprinted without permission" makes it all right to violate copyright. > If I steal some money from you, but then am careful to let people know who > it really belongs to when I spend it, have I lessened the crime any? > And I don't know why "citing a source" and indicating "without permission" makes a brief quote a copyright violation. I do think, however, that I probably should not have raised the question by making such a statement. But I surely would want to indicate the source as I cannot vouch for the information. > Why am I especially surprised to see it in a moderated group? One Well, maybe it should have given you cause to Email the moderator and asked why he thought the article was not improper; having such a discussion in a news-group is a lot more commotion and takes more effort. If a private conversion doesn't satisfy you, you can still start a public discussion later. > One of the reasons people are pushing mod groups (although not the major > advantage over net groups in my opinion) is so when (and if) stargate > becomes a reality, there will be somebody at the controls to prevent > exactly this sort of bad posting practice that might cause legal problems. Yeah, it's going to be "lawyers left and right" - I can hardly wait ... ---Werner
shor@sphinx.UUCP (07/16/86)
In article <2389@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: >In article <451@hplabsc.UUCP> hplabs!taylor writes: >[An interesting article about a MacIntosh computer used in a courtroom.] >> (above, without permission, from A+ Magazine, August '86, page 16, >> column News and Views, by Frederic E. Davis) > I don't know why people think that citing a source and then adding >"reprinted without permission" makes it all right to violate copyright. >If I steal some money from you, but then am careful to let people know who >it really belongs to when I spend it, have I lessened the crime any? I believe that the quote from A+ would be considered "fair use," in that it was a short excerpt and probably did not damage sales of the magazine. The point here is that it does not necessarily violate copyright laws to quote copyrighted materials; the restrictions are on the type and extent of quoting done. A (probably *the*) major problem with fair use is that it has never been fully defined to anyone's satisfaction. There are, however, quotations and excerpts that would clearly considered to be fair use, and it seems to me that the quote from the article about the Mac in court would fall into that category. -- Melinda Shore ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor University of Chicago Computation Center XASSHOR@UCHIMVS1.Bitnet
bobg@paladin.UUCP (07/16/86)
In article <2389@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP writes: > In article <451@hplabsc.UUCP> hplabs!taylor writes: > [An interesting article about a MacIntosh computer used in a courtroom.] > > (above, without permission, from A+ Magazine, August '86, page 16, > > column News and Views, by Frederic E. Davis) > > I don't know why people think that citing a source and then adding > "reprinted without permission" makes it all right to violate copyright. > If I steal some money from you, but then am careful to let people know who > it really belongs to when I spend it, have I lessened the crime any? > In todays world, almost anything worth discussing is copyrighted. If we were to gather in an informal group and discussed the matter, that would be no violation of copyright (right?). If we can't discuss copyrighted topics on the net, just what CAN we talk about, without fear from legal action? I don't like writing this letter, but it seems to be one of the few letters open only to verbal abuse, not legal abuse. (I would rather use the net as an information database of sorts) Can't we just say the acticle from A+ Magazine is posted as reference material? - Isn't siting the source and author sufficient? I might be living in my own little world, but I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me what is so wrong here. thanks for your time, Bob Goldberg -- From the world of Paladin: ihnp4!gargoyle!paladin!bobg (Bob Goldberg)
tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (07/18/86)
In article <21@paladin.UUCP> bobg@paladin.UUCP (Bob Goldberg) writes: > In todays world, almost anything worth discussing is >copyrighted. If we were to gather in an informal group and discussed the >matter, that would be no violation of copyright (right?). > Right. > If we can't discuss copyrighted topics on the net, >just what CAN we talk about, without fear from legal action? > There is no problem with discussing copyrighted stuff. There is a problem with copying coyrighted stuff. So, for example, I can say "The movie reviewer for the L.A. times did not like _The_Attack_of_the_50_foot_ Corn_from_Iowa_, because he said it was just a remake of _Giant_Devolved_ Pickles_from_Ohio_", and start a discussion on the net. But I can't say "Here is a review from the L.A. Times" and post the entire review. -- Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim "hey, bay-BEE'...hey, bay-BEE'" Compuserve: 72257,3706 Delphi || GEnie: mnementh