rhm (12/07/82)
What new legislation is it that makes copyright violation a crime? When and where was it passed? What is the source of this novel information?
heliotis@sri-unix (12/07/82)
Does this mean that net.poems is basically illegal, except for original work?
djo (12/07/82)
Is it a crime for me to xerox a poem i like and pass it around to my friends? Is it illegal to xerox a passage to a book and take it to a class to discuss with the students? Correct me if I'm wrong but I think not. Why then is it a crime for me to share a similar item with my friends on a computer network? I simply do not understand.
tom@sri-unix (12/08/82)
I agree. This sort of thing could concievably bring the net down in a law suit. Does anybody know if AP or UPI news articles are generally copyrighted? Sending out this kind of information is somewhat common and probably should be looked into. Please address replies to this question to me and I will follow up.
dee (12/08/82)
(1) The original text might have been in the public domain. If it had no copyright notice and was found in a context were you do not have other reason to believe the author wished to protect it, I don't believe it is any crime to distribute it. (2) If it was copyright and you distribute it without a copyright notice, then you are also nudging it into the public domain and might be liable for damages for that reason as well. Thus being sure that you distribute it with a copyright notice is almost certain to reduce your liability. (3) I don't believe a node on the network commits a crime in case 1 above. Even if a message does have a copyright notice, the messages are not normally examined at each node and the net is just a transmission medium. It is not clear that sending news is difference from publishing a lot of copies and mailing them to all news recipients, at least from the point of view of copyrights. Thus I think the original sending is the only potential wrong doer here. (4) Perhaps the ultimate right thing is some machine recognizable form of the Copyright Clearing Center message you can put on something with the copyright notice if you want people to be able to easily copy it for a fee. This plus electronic funds transfer would be an interesting form of electronic publication.
gh (12/10/82)
The 1975 article offered as a reference on copyright is rather out of date, as major revisions to the law took effect in 1978. The best reference I know on the new law is "The Copyright Book" by William S. Strong, MIT Press, 1981, $12.50. It is a guide to complexities of copyright for the layperson. Unfortunately, there are necessarily some gaps in it, where matters that need to be resolved by case law have not yet been resolved, because the law is too new.
death (12/10/82)
Would somebody just go ask a lawyer, post the opinion to the network, and then be done with it? -=- dd -=-
mark (12/10/82)
Look, you're getting it wrong. It may be a copyright violation to post copyrighted things on USENET, but there is no way you can sue the net (or an individual site) or bring down the net. That's like making the CB radio band illegal because somebody uses profanity on the air. It's like arresting your mailman because he delivered a letter whose contents are a threat to the life of the president. The network as a whole is not responsible for assuring that the things posted to it are free and clear. Neither is a particular site. The person responsible (that's PERSON, you can't throw a machine in jail) is the one who posted it in the first place. S/he knew (or should have known) that by posting it, they are making 400 copies and distributing them to 10000 people. We should make people aware that they should not post copyrighted material without permission, but the network as a whole is not threatened. Mark
gh (12/12/82)
Yes, it is probably a crime (or at least a civil offense against the author) to photocopy a whole poem. Authors have rights, too. Just like recording artists who lose half their rightful income to people with tape recorders, poets are glad you appreciate their work, and would rather your appreciation extended to actually paying for their work.
derek (12/13/82)
It is illegal to photo copy poems or pages in a copyrighted book! If someone wishes to bring charges against someone on the net, they will NOT bring charges against the whole net. They will choose selected sites, probably the person who posted it, the admisitrator who allowed this to happen, and a site out in netland which is guilty of passing it on. Derek Andrew, U of Saskatchewan
charles (12/13/82)
Net.poems is not basically illegal, if you give credit where credit is due. Personally, I feel that anything witty enough is either original or has had its copyright expired a long time ago.
lemmon (12/17/82)
The automatic copyright notice and funds transfer idea is part of what Ted Nelson is getting at in his Xanadu (tm) system. His idea is that authors should submit directly to a net and get the royalties directly. People who quote others' work then pay subroyalties to those others out of the royalties which they earn from the work containing the quote. Looks like a nice idea, but still somewhat in the future (though they are working on it!) Alan Lemmon