pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney) (06/27/91)
dpassage@soda.berkeley.edu (David G. Paschich) writes: >BTW, at my site, whenever I'm forced to turn off a user's account, I >always do it by changing their shell to a program that tells them why >their account has been turned off, and I always make them able to >extract their files via FTP, or some other solution if they don't have >other net access. I consider that information their property and I >don't have the right to keep them from accessing it. That last line is interesting. I don't know much about law, but I've heard it claimed, at least in Ireland, that copyright exists on something you've written the moment you write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is in effect illegal. So should a sysadmin at least give a user whose account has been suspended some way of retrieving their files, at least hard copies of them? P. -- moorcockheathersiainbankshamandcornpizzapjorourkebluesbrothersspikeleepratchett clive P a u l M o l o n e y "Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the rem james Trinity College,Dublin mind." PMOLONEY%VAX1.TCD.IE@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU vr brownbladerunnerorsonscottcardprincewatchmenkatebushbatmanthekillingjoketolkien
rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (06/27/91)
In article <pmoloney.678021102@unix1.tcd.ie> pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney) writes: > >That last line is interesting. I don't know much about law, but I've heard >it claimed, at least in Ireland, that copyright exists on something you've >written the moment you write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is >in effect illegal. So should a sysadmin at least give a user whose account I guess I will have to report our janitorial staff for their illegal activities. They have been ERASING CLASSROOM BLACKBOARDS overnight thus DESTROYING SOMETHING WRITTEN and thereby KEEPING IT FROM THE WRITER. Seriously, your comments don't make sense. If there is a copyright the moment it is written, I cannot appropriate the text and use it as if it were mine. But that doesn't mean I have to give the writer access to it. Where it was written also has some significance. In the case of the computer, the creator of the files may have no ownership rights or other rights of access to the disk on which it was written. Common sense says that if you remove a user's access from the computer, you should make some provisions for him to access the data. But there is no requirement, and there are obvious cases when you would not do that (such as when the user fill your disk with a gigabyte of his data, consuming all available space). -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science <rickert@cs.niu.edu> Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940
lowey@herald.usask.ca (Kevin Lowey,159 Physics,(306) 966-4826,(306) 249-3232) (06/27/91)
From pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney): > > That last line is interesting. I don't know much about law, but I've heard > it claimed, at least in Ireland, that copyright exists on something you've > written the moment you write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is > in effect illegal. So should a sysadmin at least give a user whose account > has been suspended some way of retrieving their files, at least hard copies > of them? First, I'm not a lawyer, so don't believe a word of this message #8-) While it is true that once something is written, it is covered by copyright, that doesn't necessarily mean the person that wrote it is the copyright owner. For example, the following is part of my contract with the University: 1. The Member of Staff hereby assigns and agrees to assign to The University all his rights to all discoveries or inventions, whether patentable or not, which he may hereafter make or conceive during the period of his employment at the university and relating directly or indirectly to the scientific or other scholorly work upon which he is engaged at the University or arising out of such work; except that the disposition of any such discoveries or inventions which may arise directly from any sponsored research or project carried on under a contract or an agreement approved by The University shall be determined by the terms of the said contract or agreement. This is pretty loose, just talking about inventions coming from research. However, I'm sure a lot of companies in highly competitive business, such as the telephone/communications industry, have much more restrictive terms in their contract. Basically, it boils down to me signing over all my rights to anything I produce using University equipment. The computer is supposed to be used for doing research (or in my case work to support researchers and staff). Thus, everything on the computer should belong to the University, and I have no rights to those files once I've left the University. Technically, I probably don't even have the rights to take the files with me when I go. For example, lets say I'm moving to another University. I produced the MS-DOS course notes, overheads, and handout. These are all stored in files on my computer. However, the University owns the copyright on these files, so I cannot take them with me to another University for use in their MS-DOS course. Whether that applies to personal mail, or alt.sex.pictures binaries #8-) is the question. I'm sure the university could make the case that EVERYTHING on the computer belongs to them, because the computer is there for me to do my job. Anything not relating to the job doesn't belong there anyway. - Kevin Lowey
chip@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Charles H. Buchholtz) (06/28/91)
From pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney): > [...] copyright exists on something you've written the moment you > write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is in effect > illegal. As I understand it, copyright refers to intellectual property, not physical property. Ie, someone can't publish your work without your permission, or claim that they wrote it themselves. Suppose Alice is a famous author, and writes many letters to her friend Betty. A Publisher must get Alice's permission to publish the letters, since they are her work and she has the copyright. But if a museum wants to display the letters, they must get them from Betty, not Alice; Betty owns the physical letters themselves. I am posting as an individual, not as a representative of U. of P. I am not a lawyer, this is my personal understanding of the law. Charles H. Buchholtz Systems Programmer chip@seas.upenn.edu School of Engineering and Applied Science University of Pennsylvania
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (06/29/91)
From: pmoloney@unix1.tcd.ie (Paul Michael Moloney) >That last line is interesting. I don't know much about law, but I've heard >it claimed, at least in Ireland, that copyright exists on something you've >written the moment you write it. So keeping files of writing from a user is >in effect illegal. So should a sysadmin at least give a user whose account >has been suspended some way of retrieving their files, at least hard copies >of them? [Hang on it gets more interesting... Although I agree with the sentiment (don't get me wrong), I think you're making a bit of a leap there. If I wrote a poem on your car I don't think there's much I could do about stopping you from driving off with it. You may own the copyright (preventing me from publishing it) but I doubt there'd be much sympathy if you never provided yourself with a reasonable copy of your own work. It could be argued that this would be more similar to allowing you back in your own office after having been fired to retrieve personal effects, but forget copyright, that only says who may publish your work, basically. It's an interesting argument, but tenuous. You're correct about the automatic copyright, as per the Berne Convention (which the USA is also a signatory to), one no longer has to explicitly put a copyright onto a work for it to be considered copyrighted (note, however, that although such a work is unarguably yours in such a case in the USA at least you would be pretty much limited to cease and desist orders if you found someone using it, unless it's registered you can't (*generally*, this is law, not science) collect monetary damages for misuse. HOWEVER, if you did work on a University (or other workplace) computer there could be claims to that work by the University. It depends on a lot of things which would be hard to go into here. But if it was related to what you were paid for or received grant monies for then ownership could be at least partially in dispute and fear that you would retrieve a copy and then destroy it is, well, it's within the realm of sanity. For example, course notes or exercises could quite legitimately be claimed by the University, assuming you were paid to teach the particular course. ...about here] Unfortunately more than one University has used denial of access to computer files as a way of punishing or trying to force some political concession out of a person. I know of one case where a professor filed a discrimination suit against the university and they immediately removed her access and, hence, access to a book she was writing. And used this to try to leverage a settlement out of her. Needless to say this is one reason personal computers can be very popular around universities, regardless of all the promised convenience of centralized systems. It's not said out loud very often, however. But I bet a lot of you know profs who's only computer they are interested in is the personal computer they keep at home (other than perhaps logging in to a central computer for email etc.) Now you know why. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD