chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/01/86)
I have a followup on the recent problem with the inadvertant posting of the
copyrighted story "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by larry niven. Today I
received a letter from Niven, which follows:
June 24, 1986
Larry Niven
Tarzana, CA
Dear Mr. Von Rospach,
Many thanks for being alert in my behalf.
Nothing's going to come of it, though. I make some efforts to guard
my copyrights, but I'd rather spend my time writing than in court. It
sounds like I would have a hard time even finding a perpetrator.
Asides from that, Man of Steel/Woman of Kleenex is an old story and
makes a great joke. I can't think that I've been seriously harmed.
So Mr. Crist is safe...but you need not tell him that. Please
inform him, instead, that Mr. Niven thinkgs he's picked up a bad habit.
Best wishes, etc...
---
Editorial comments:
First, I'm glad that the situation is settled and won't go any further. At
least we KNOW we won't be expecting summon's sometimes. By cooperating with
the author and giving him the option to decide where to proceed, we make it
easier for them to not have to force our hand. I AM glad, though, that the
story was a Niven story and not an Ellison...
None of this obviates the problem of posting copyrighted material. DON'T do
it. Period. If you aren't sure, don't take the chance. Not all authors
are as nice and easy going as Niven. Some have lawyers, and aren't afraid
of using them. We aren't small, and we aren't chickenfeed anymore, and
don't give them the opportunity to set precedencts with our network.
chuq
--
:From the lofty realms of Castle Plaid: Chuq Von Rospach
chuq%plaid@sun.COM FidoNet: 125/84 CompuServe: 73317,635
{decwrl,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!plaid!chuq
Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be
the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table.
-- The Anarchist Cookbooknick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) (07/01/86)
In article <4652@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >I have a followup on the recent problem with the inadvertant posting of the >copyrighted story "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by larry niven. Today I >received a letter from Niven, which follows: > > June 24, 1986 > Larry Niven > Tarzana, CA > >Dear Mr. Von Rospach, > > Many thanks for being alert in my behalf. > What some people will do to get a letter from a famous writer (I believe he wrote the Mote in God's Eye with Jerry Pournelle) is beyond me. Hope you didn't throw that one away. Tattletale. :-) Nick ( Um, normally I wouldn't post such nonsense on the net, but I have been re-educated by certain people on net.comics "hey, it only costs a few pennies to post news" (you know who you are) Nevermind that the cost expands geometrically. Nevermind that the backbone sites paid ~500K 2 years ago for news and that it costs more now. ) "Umuhmuhmuhmuhmuhmuh I'm gonna tell mom on you!!!!" -- Every little kid "Good Soldier" -- The Dark Knight
chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/02/86)
I'm going to assume you're trying to be humourous and not demeaning, and answer this straight... > What some people will do to get a letter from a famous writer (I believe > he wrote the Mote in God's Eye with Jerry Pournelle) is beyond me. > Hope you didn't throw that one away. I don't throw ANY letter I get from an author away, because they come in handy when I need to prove to the IRS that things like my CompuServe account really are professional deductions and that I really truly am a writer who deserves to take his postage bill (somewhere around the size of the federal deficit) off as a business deduction. More seriously, in this case, if for some reason Niven changes his mind in the future, we have documentation of a good faith action to working with Niven on this case. That will go a long way towards protecting the net from any damages claim that may occur -- we have documentation that Niven knew about the problem and declined action on it. > Tattletale. :-) Damn Straight. Usenet is not above the law, despite the appearances and the actions of a few low-lifes. We've played far and wide with copyright over the years, from posting Joe-Bob every week to this latest mistake. When Usenet was 100 users on 50 sites, practicality says that it ins't a problem, but 20,000 user on 2,000 sites is a significant audience. If WE don't police ourself, someone else will do it for us. It is CRITICAL that we show ourselves to be cooperative when these things occur, because voluntarily trying to reduce the damage of an infringement goes a lot way towards keeping the author from geting pissed at us and the court from awarding major damages. As I said before, be glad the infringement was on Niven and not Harlan Ellison. > "Umuhmuhmuhmuhmuhmuh I'm gonna tell mom on you!!!!" > -- Every little kid no, my mother doesn't care about copyright. I do, since I'm a writer, and I plan to continue to care about it. It is important for the net to realize what the laws are and to follow them, or someone is going to get burned. -- :From the lofty realms of Castle Plaid: Chuq Von Rospach chuq%plaid@sun.COM FidoNet: 125/84 CompuServe: 73317,635 {decwrl,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!plaid!chuq Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. -- The Anarchist Cookbook
flaps@utcs.UUCP (07/03/86)
>Today I received a letter from Niven, which follows:
Ha! But did you ever worry about whether or not you were violating copyright
to repost this letter and put it in the public domain?? :-)eric@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Eric Cotton) (07/03/86)
In article <4703@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > >> Tattletale. :-) > >Damn Straight. Usenet is not above the law, despite the appearances and the >actions of a few low-lifes. We've played far and wide with copyright over >the years, from posting Joe-Bob every week to this latest mistake. When >Usenet was 100 users on 50 sites, practicality says that it ins't a problem, >but 20,000 user on 2,000 sites is a significant audience. If WE don't police >ourself, someone else will do it for us. I agree, we should police ourSELVES. That is why I have to agree with the original poster about tattling. I followed all the postings in reference to this issue. It seems to me that the original poster of Niven's work took enough abuse from the net.police without the need to drag outside parties into it. I think we all learned a much needed lesson in net etiquette. Granted, the posting was a stupid mistake, but there was no malicious intent, and I feel that the poster was generally sorry for what he did. > It is CRITICAL that we show >ourselves to be cooperative when these things occur, because voluntarily >trying to reduce the damage of an infringement goes a lot way towards >keeping the author from geting pissed at us and the court from awarding >major damages. As I said before, be glad the infringement was on Niven and >not Harlan Ellison. > Eric Cotton -- "My hovercraft is full of eels." /*========================================================================*/ /*==== UUCP: {ihnp4|allegra|seismo|pyramid!amiga}!cbmvax!eric ====*/ /*==== ARPA: cbmvax!eric@seismo ====*/ /*==== US mail: Commodore Technology / 1200 Wilson Drive ====*/ /*==== West Chester, PA 19380 ====*/ /*==== phone: (215) 431-9180 ====*/ /*========================================================================*/
jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) (07/09/86)
In article <1986Jul2.233539.3816@utcs.uucp> flaps@utcs.UUCP (Alan J Rosenthal) writes: [No attribution, but we all know it's Chuq] >>Today I received a letter from Niven, which follows: >Ha! But did you ever worry about whether or not you were violating copyright >to repost this letter and put it in the public domain?? :-) Private correspondence is considered to be the property of the addressee, who in this case has chosen to publish it without any copyright attributions. My [rhetorical] question: did he make one copy, or 50,000? Think about it. ====== This article is Copyright (c) 1986 by one or more of: the above-named author or authors, the above-named organisation, and/or the United States Government. Permission is hereby granted to copy and re-use this article for any non-commercial purposes, provided that no modification, addition, or deletion to the header, this copyright notice, or the body of the article is made, with the sole exception of local modifications to the return-path needed for correctness. Quoted extracts must be properly attributed. This permission is withdrawn from any person, group, organisation, machine, or entity who sends useless flames, which will in any case be consigned to /dev/null. -- Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP} jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/10/86)
> Private correspondence is considered to be the property of > the addressee, who in this case has chosen to publish it > without any copyright attributions. If I am not mistaken, the physical letter is owned by the addressee *but* the copyright on it remains with the author. So it's not so clear-cut. -- Usenet(n): AT&T scheme to earn revenue from otherwise-unused Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology late-night phone capacity. {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) (07/16/86)
In article <464@hadron.UUCP> jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) writes: >Private correspondence is considered to be the property of >the addressee, who in this case has chosen to publish it >without any copyright attributions. This statement is correct, but insufficient: The *physical correspondence* belongs to the addressee, but the *copyright* belongs to the addressee. So Niven should have been asked for his permission for this too! Disclaimer: Two thoughts make me wonder about whether what I just said applies in this case. First, copyright law in the U.S. has always differed from British and European practice, and the rule I quoted is British. (If you care, I know it because I misspent much of my later youth reading the TLS instead of physics.) Secondly, one frequently sees biographers (etc.) thanking owners of letters from dead biographees for allowing the letters to be quoted. Do the rules change when the author is dead? If I knew, you might be more inclined to believe me. -- Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416) 978-4058 {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke
chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/17/86)
> In article <464@hadron.UUCP> jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) writes: > >Private correspondence is considered to be the property of > >the addressee, who in this case has chosen to publish it > >without any copyright attributions. > > This statement is correct, but insufficient: The *physical correspondence* > belongs to the addressee, but the *copyright* belongs to the addressee. So > Niven should have been asked for his permission for this too! If you read the text of the original letter, Niven GAVE permission by telling me to tell Ken what his thoughts were. Since Ken had been upbraded publicly, the final resolution should also have been made publicly, which I did. This is an amazingly silly nitpick, by the way. It never fails to amaze me how the network can spend amazing amounts of time on mindless arguments... > Secondly, one frequently sees biographers (etc.) thanking owners of letters > from dead biographees for allowing the letters to be quoted. Do the rules > change when the author is dead? No. After a period of time, it all falls into the public domain. If the letters are donated to a library or some such, so do the rights. There was recently a HUGE volume of letters by John W. Campbell, Jr. published, and a great deal of time and effort was spent securing rights from Conde Nast (the publisher he worked for) and his widow to do so. When someone dies, rights are transferred to their estate just like every other property. chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach chuq%plaid@sun.COM CompuServe: 73317,635 {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!sun!plaid!chuq O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim Of Brahamana and recluse the honoured name! For, quarrelling, each to his view they claim, Such folk see only one side of a thing. -- Buddha -- The Elephant and the Blind Men
clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke) (07/18/86)
In article <5175@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: [about something I wrote, though the reference seems to have been dropped] >> .... The *physical correspondence* >> belongs to the addressee, but the *copyright* belongs to the addressee. So ^^^^^^^^^ >> Niven should have been asked for his permission for this too! > >If you read the text of the original letter, Niven GAVE permission by >telling me to tell Ken what his thoughts were.... >This is an amazingly silly nitpick, by the way. (As well as containing an amazingly silly mistake, in which I typed "addressee" for "sender".) Sorry -- it wasn't meant as a nitpick, exactly because Niven had encouraged the publication of his letter. It was meant as a point of information, the amazing triviality of which was perhaps offset by its obvious relevance to a discussion of copyright. Perhaps not. Didn't mean to offend. >> Secondly, one frequently sees biographers (etc.) thanking owners of letters >> from dead biographees for allowing the letters to be quoted. Do the rules >> change when the author is dead? > >No. After a period of time, it all falls into the public domain. If the >letters are donated to a library or some such, so do the rights. There was >recently a HUGE volume of letters by John W. Campbell, Jr. published, and a >great deal of time and effort was spent securing rights from Conde Nast (the >publisher he worked for) and his widow to do so. When someone dies, rights >are transferred to their estate just like every other property. I'd complain about how trivial this is, too, except that I find it interesting. Thanks. -- Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 (416) 978-4058 {allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke