pcmcgeer (12/14/82)
Checked with a law-student friend last night. It turns out that distributing Xeroxes of copyright material in any way is a violation of copyright. However, he notes that in practice nothing gets done unless it is a gross violation of copyright: that is, a massive violation that has provably damaged the copyright holder. Dan Klein's bboard example is not a gross violation. I further suspect that the violations of copyright on the net are not gross, and that the key question - did publication of material here on the net damage the copyright holder - must be answered in the negative. I should point out that most of the excerpts I have seen reprinted on the net were from newspaper and magazine articles, which are usually not protected by copyright. Rick.
tim (12/16/82)
I was incorrect in my original statement that transmitting copyrighted articles posted by someone else is illegal. Since the article is often on its way before an administrator reads it, this is clearly fallacious. I am familiar with the fact that excerpts from a copyrighted work may be republished without consent for use in critical articles, or for "comment". Most such works posted to the net are published as is, with little comment, and not excerpted. I am firmly convinced that anyone doing this is guilty of copyright violation. This, however, is not the real issue. Is it proper for someone to do this? The legalities are irrelevant here. As the holder of quite a few copyrights, I can say that I would be upset at best and outraged at worst if anyone were to republish any of my works without asking me. Again, I ask you to consider how you would feel if someone were to ignore a license on your own software and distribute it freely. Finally, to those of you who expect asking lawyers to solve the issue, you are living in a dream world. My apologies to any lawyers reading this, but lawyers, like philosophers, strive not to answer questions, but to perpetuate them. You will find nearly as many opinions in either field as there are practitioners. Tim Maroney unc!tim
mclure (12/17/82)
#R:unc:-442800:sri-unix:7300004:000:366 sri-unix!mclure Dec 16 22:21:00 1982 Random flame (maybe should go to net.flame?): "Laywers, like philosophers, try to perpetuate questions rather than solve them." (or something like that) Tim Maroney Right on! And to perpetuate them they try to complicate the situation as much as possible. Look at our court system. Is it any wonder that the chief justice himself is very pessimistic? Stuart
kh (12/19/82)
Just a notice about copyright penalties: TSR Hobbies, Inc, makers of AD&D, are being forced to remove two sections from their book "Dieties and Demigods" due to massive violations. These sections were adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock's works to AD&D terms. They are not, how- ever, paying any sizable fines. It just goes to show that, even when people massive ignore the law, they can get away with it. So, don't worry about putting xeroxes on a bulletin board; no one (probably) is going to kill you. A name from the past, Blackhand the Evil duke!unc!kh kh.unc@UDel-Relay Chapel Hill, N.C. _____________________________________________________ AD&D is a trademark of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Same for "Dieties and Demigods".
xchar (12/20/82)
Recently nine publishers filed suit against New York University, ten of its faculty members, and a copying company, charging that the faculty members told off-campus copy centers what pages to copy, and the centers then sold the copies to students. A representative of the publishers said that the suit, the first directed at a college, "will make the academic community aware that they are violating the law so that they will change their photocopying practices."
boyajian@akov68.DEC (03/17/84)
While I don't necessarily condone copyright violations, there are some
things to consider when talking about reproducing song lyrics. Strictly speak-
ing, yes, it *is* violating Weird Al's copyright for someone to reproduce the
lyrics for "Eat It" (let's name names, OK?). I'm not sure that it doesn't come
under "fair use", though, just as say, my playing "Landslide" at a music party
doesn't in any practical sense violate Stevie Nicks's copyright on *that* song.
While the law is there to protect the copyright holder under any conditions, I
think in practice, it's used only when the copyright holder stands to take some
financial loss from the unauthorized reproduction.
Printed song lyrics are not something that the copyright holder general-
ly puts out for sale (there are the music sheets, but the principal attraction
to them is the *music*, not the lyrics), so we netters aren't really getting
anything for free that we might otherwise have to pay the copyright holder for.
Remember, the only thing that we would theoretically pay for in this example,
is a copy of the *record* or the *music sheet*, not just the printed lyrics.
If anything, printing the lyrics might *generate* financial income for the CH,
since there might be some people out there who, amused by what they read, would
go out and, God forbid!, buy a copy of the record.
To be honest, I hardly think that the "stealing a painting from a mu-
seum" example is a proper analogy. A more accurate (though still not quite on
the button) analogy would be the taping of television programs or cable movies
for later viewings, which the Supreme Court recently decided was "fair use",
if done for private home viewing and not to make a profit therefrom.
I don't want to suggest, by the above, that copyright laws should be
ignored, but that some reasonable thinking has be done before crying "Foul!"
Before accusing anyone of criminal activities, think about the intent behind
them and what kind of effects will come about as a result.
Please, no flames --- I'm not saying that "I'm right and you're
wrong, nyahnyahnyahnyahnyah". I'm just tossing out something to think about.
--- jayembee
(Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard)
UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian)
PS: One thing I think Tim is definitely correct in pointing out, though, is
it certainly is possible that a site could held responsible for viola-
tions such as Tim describes, and that people should be more careful when
submitting possibly legally-questionable material.bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (03/18/84)
I scarcely think that posting the lyrics to a song to the network -- a medium
with thousands of readers -- can be justified as "fair use." In the partic-
ular case of Weird Al's "Eat it," it is *precisely* the lyrics that must be
protected. They are the only valuable part of the satire. I expect, had
anyone bothered to check, that you would find the copyright laws protect the
lyrics from distribution (not just sale) in any form through any medium.
Playing a song at a music party does qualify as fair use in that you are
(1) not performing the song for profit and (2) not distributing the work in
any tangible form. While I suspect intent may be used as a mollifying
influence once a case has been brought to court, it do not think one's intent
has anything to do with the fact that a crime has been committed. (gee
ossifer, I only stole that food so I could give it to the poor...)
--
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
Byron Howes
UNC - Chapel Hill
({decvax,akgua}!mcnc!unc!bch)dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (03/19/84)
Playing a song at a party is probably the same sort of thing as performing a play. Neither is publication. Sending something out on the network and causing thousands of copies to exist on thousands of disks is clearly publiction.
porges@inmet.UUCP (03/20/84)
#R:unc:-693400:inmet:4000049:000:704 inmet!porges Mar 19 12:55:00 1984 Actually, considering the shaky legal grounds of satire, this is a particularly strange case of copyright infringement. After all, Weird Al's success is totally parasitical upon a song by somebody else! Also, it's not quite true that, as the previous correspondent said, the lyrics are the *only* important (and thus protectable) part of the song, though if you don't have your MTV you might not have seen it....the video of this song is an uncanny shot for shot and move for move parody of the orginal "Beat It" video, so the words aren't actually the best thing anyway! -- Don Porges ...harpo!inmet!porges ...hplabs!sri-unix!cca!ima!inmet!porges ...yale-comix!ima!inmet!porges
andrew@inmet.UUCP (03/20/84)
#R:unc:-693400:inmet:4000050:000:445 inmet!andrew Mar 19 13:45:00 1984 Right! Has anyone established that Weird Al did indeed copyright his parody lyrics? Many people who parody others' songs prefer to avoid the legal hassles involved and leave their own names out of the writing credits. (Allan Sherman, when satirizing a popular song, always gave all the composing credits to the original writers - but when the subject of the parody was in the public domain, he credited himself and his arranger, Lou Busch.)
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (03/20/84)
I can tell you from being heavily associated with many student activities at college that playing a song in public and performing plays are both subject copyrights and royalties. Even classical works (both music and play) are subject since it is most likely that you are using as a base someone's arrangement or production which IS still copyrighted. With regard to music we had one blanket agreement that covered concerts, background music, and the campus radio station (although the way they agreed on the fees was sort of convoluted) with each of the major licensing firms (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). Even non-broadcast carrier current stations are subject. Plays were negotiated with the people we bought the scripts from. Arrangements ranged from just buying the specified number of copies of the script to fixed rates to percentages or "per seat" charages. -Ron
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (03/20/84)
(This is a witty saying to fool the eater of blank lines)
Disclaimer: I am not a copyright lawyer. If I was, I would be making much too
much money to worry about computers. Therefore, these are my opinions, and
not to be taken as the opinions of anyone or anything else. You don't even
need to agree with them if you don't want to.
Discussion: While I am not a specialist in copyrights, I have a background
in the print media and am very interested in the legal areas that affect
writers (software and traditional). It is my opinion that a good argument
can be made that usenet is a publishing entity and that anything published
upon it is entered into the public domain unless the publisher (in this
case, the submitter) specifically reserves rights to it with a copyright
notice. Under most circumstances, it isn't worth the time to reserve
rights, so we don't bother.
Lets look as a specific example. Why are we very hyper about not publishing
Bell Proprietary Unix code to net.sources? Because anything placed in
net.sources is effectively placed in the public domain, and effecting
licensing restrictions on it becomes realistically impossible. If we were
to ship the SystemV kernel over net.sources, you can well imagine what ATT
would do, because we have effectively ruined any chance of their being able
to control that software in the future.
I now make the assumption that everyone agrees that it is wrong to ship
known proprietary and restricted code over the net (let us not get into an
argument over whether Unix should be public domain... It isn't and it won't
be, and ATT will fight like hell to keep it that way). Now, music lyrics
such as that under discussion ('Wierd Al Yankovic's Eat It') are
copyrighted under the same laws that our software is, and have basically
the same restrictions. Can you tell me why it is wrong to post software and
right to post lyrics when they are governed the same way? Posting a lyric
will keep n number of people from buying the album or the sheet music for
that song the same way posting the kernel will keep n number of people from
buying a tape from Bell, to the same result. Loss of business and a
straightforward copyright violation.
It gets much worse than this, because under many circumstances people post
copyrighted material without the copyright marking, and in many cases
without any notation as to source, author, or anything. In the latter case,
this is what is known as plagiarism, because there is an explicit or
implied change of ownership of the material. In the former case, you have
just taken a copyrighted work and made it public domain. This was a
significant problem when we went through the phase where people were
typing in movie review columns off of the news service. It is very possible
for someone to take our version of the column and publish it again, and
make a good case for it to be in the public domain when the rights owner
comes to get them to pay for it. At that point, the rights owner has the
right to come to us for payment of lost money because we put it in the
public domain.
Well, what can they do to us? Usenet is simply an unofficial grouping of
computers, there is no central authority for them to attack, right?
I see two ways that a bunch of lawyers could attack the net for a copyright
violation. First, they could track down the source and sue the individual
and the company that he works for (for allowing him to place their work in
the public domain). Chances are that the companies lawyers would take one
look at the case, settle very quietly out of court, and disappear the
network from their computers very quickly. If that was nsc or some other
minor site, no biggie, the net could live without us. But what if Dec's
lawyers forced them off the net? What about ATT?
A worse possible case, but less likely, is that a group of lawyers could
decide that all sites involved in the network are equally involved in the
violation because it occurred on each system. In that case, it is possible
that they would sue every company on the net, and we would have figured out
how to generate the most complicated lawsuit since they settled the IBM
anti-trust case, because we would be up to our ears in lawyers. if that
were to ever happen, I would be willing to bet that the network would be
dismantled so quickly your ears would ring.
Is that something you want to take a chance on? I'd much rather be
conservative and safe.
--
From behind the bar at Callahan's: Chuq Von Rospach
{fortune,menlo70}!nsc!chuqui (408) 733-2600 x242
If everyone marches to the beat of a different drummer,
why does mine have to use a bongo?perelgut@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (03/21/84)
Seems to me that it would be VERY difficult to PROVE that a particular
person at a particular site really submitted any article. I can think of
many ways of making a submission look like it came from another site. But it
would be anti-social to actually post any of them, wouldn't it :-)
--
Stephen Perelgut
Computer Systems Research Group University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsrgv!perelgut
CSNET: perelgut@Torontotim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (03/21/84)
A very good article from Chuck Von Rospach. One point remains to be made on publication of proprietary source code: The copyright law includes in its "fair use" provisions an allowance for publication of short extracts from copyrighted works for critical purposes. Given this, while it would still be illeagl to publish, say, the complete source of awk(1), you would not be violating the law to publish, say, twenty lines of code for the purpose of commenting on the quality of the code, or in an article on programming styles, etc. Does anyone know if there are additional restrictions on software that would forbid this? -- Tim Maroney, The Censored Hacker mcnc!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA) All opinions expressed herein are completely my own, so don't go assuming that anyone else at UNC feels the same way.
david@tekig.UUCP (David Hayes) (03/21/84)
Hey! Let's call up old "wierd Al" and see if he minds the lyrics of Eat It splashed all over the country to a bunch of computer nerds, wombats, hackers, and other various forms of life permanently attached to plastic keyboards by their fingertips! Copyright pending.... dave
kalm@ihuxw.UUCP (James ) (03/21/84)
I don't know whether Weird Al Yankovic lost any money because his lyrics were posted on the net but I would imagine that it might work in his favor if it attracted people to buy his record. (Incidently, I heard the album which includes "Eat it" and it is a very amusing satire on modern materialistic life in plastic America). This brings up an interesting question. If your actions result in his MAKING money instead of losing it, why can't you charge him a fee for the service? I know that isn't practical, so don't post a followup to tell me that. -- Jim Kalmadge IX 1c415 8-367-0475 (312) 979-0475 ihuxw!kalm
boyajian@akov68.DEC (03/22/84)
> Posting a lyric > will keep n number of people from buying the album or the sheet music for > that song the same way posting the kernel will keep n number of people from > buying a tape from Bell, to the same result. Loss of business and a > straightforward copyright violation. > ---Chuq Von Rospach I disagree; you are talking apples and oranges here. The second half of that statement is true: posting the kernel lessen the number of sales of the software from Bell, because anyone who has the source can *reproduce the object software exactly as Bell sells it*. Posting the lyrics will not do the same. By getting a free copy of the lyrics to "Eat It", I couldn't reproduce the song as it is sold by the record company; I would need the musical scores and a band, at the very least. Someone else posted a comment to the effect that the lyrics are really all there is to the song, and thus they should especially be protected. I say, "Bullshit!" I can see the point in that they certainly are the most important part of the song and the only thing that sets the song apart from that which it parodies. Still, there is more to the song than just the lyrics, namely the musical score and sound. If you seriously think that anyone would not buy the record or the sheet music because they were able to get a free copy of the lyrics from USENET, you are living off-planet somewhere. Anyone who buys a piece of sheet music does so because of the *music*, not because of the lyrics; lyrics can be transcribed off of the record, music can't (unless you're a very, *very* talented musician). Anyone who buys the record does so to listen to the song, not to read the lyr- ics. As I said in a previous posting, printing song lyrics would be more likely to *generate* sales in the record, rather than inhibit them. It's one thing to determine a literal application of the law and another to determine a practical application of the law. Let's not confuse the two. Hav- ing and using both gives the law-enforcement agencies and the courts flexiblity in dealing with crime. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)
jlw@ariel.UUCP (03/22/84)
Does the method of obtaining the lyrics to EAT IT make any difference? Did the submitter buy or otherwise obtain a printed copy of the true lyrics and then rekey them onto the net, or did the submitter reverse engineer the song by listening to it many times and decipher the lyrics? I don't know. I'm only asking. In re the TV in a bar. I think that its ok to advertise a large screen TV and that you're going to be showing the superbowl as a means of att- racting customers, but you can't charge admission of any kind such as a cover charge or minimum. Joseph L. Wood, III AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel (201) 834-3759 ariel!jlw
cromer@seismo.UUCP (Lorraine Cromer) (03/22/84)
Did anyone read in the Chicago papers of a law suit filed by a Chicago firm against CBS and M.Jackson for copyright violation? cromer@seismo
markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) (03/23/84)
In article <6946@unc.UUCP> tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >The copyright law includes in its "fair use" provisions an allowance for >publication of short extracts from copyrighted works for critical purposes. >Given this, while it would still be illeagl to publish, say, the complete >source of awk(1), you would not be violating the law to publish, say, twenty >lines of code for the purpose of commenting on the quality of the code, or >in an article on programming styles, etc. > >Does anyone know if there are additional restrictions on software that would >forbid this? If there are no additional restrictions on software, this provision obviously covers the standard practice of extracting the revelent code context when reporting a bug fix over the net. Mark Biggar {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb
ix21@sdccs6.UUCP (03/23/84)
Inmet!andrew asks if Wierd Al in fact did copyright his parody. He
did. Furthermore he stated in an interview it was necessary for him
to obtain permission in order to satire Beat It.
--
David Whiteman sdcsvax!sdccs6!whiteman
UCSD Medical School, La Jolla CA
{insert boring .signature file here}rpw3@fortune.UUCP (03/24/84)
#R:nsc:-77800:fortune:3500014:000:1167 fortune!rpw3 Mar 23 20:19:00 1984 +-------------------- | Given ["fair use" provision of Copyright Law], while it would still be | illegal to publish, say, the complete source of awk(1), you would not be | violating the law to publish, say, twenty lines of code...[to comment on | style] ...Does anyone know if there are additional restrictions on software | that would forbid this? +-------------------- Yes, your UNIX license. The primary protection that Bell has been using is the licensing (and therfore contract law) of TRADE SECRETS, not copyright (although I believe they reserve copyright as well). By signing the source license you have agreed to protect the various trade secrets ("methods or concepts utilized therein") of the "licensed software". There are NO so-called "fair use" disclosures provided for. Certain amounts of information may be exchanged between source licensees OF THE SAME CLASS, but even there the rules have sharp corners, so be careful. [Once in a while we forget what we signed up for, no?] Rob Warnock UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3 DDD: (415)595-8444 USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (03/24/84)
What makes you think Wierd Al didn't have permission from the licencees of "Beat It" to use the Music in the satire? Bet he did! Saying that the words are the only important part is blatently wrong. Classical arrangements and modern instrumentals are copyrighted. To use music in the background of a production add requires even higher royalties to be paid to the licensee. There are music companies that produced canned "production" music that has the sole intent to be licensed as backgrounds to commercials. -Ron