Re: Re: Kelly v. Arriba Soft (new opinion from 9thCir.)

First, I apologize to all of you in CNI-Copyright land for this posting, which I don't think will furthur anybody's understanding of anything to do with copyright, the correct topic of the list. I invite you to delete this now, although if you read furthur, you'll find an apology to Linda from me.

Quoting Linda Gruber <linda[_at_]novelart.com>:
> [...] I've been in the
> dark about your motives and your background. I gave you the benefit of the
> doubt and proceeded as though you simply have an interest in testing the
> limits of the copyright law as it applies to the WWW and created your site
> to introduce a provocative subject for discussion. You mentioned my interest
> in copyright education as a cause at Novel Art, so I assumed that you chose
> me because you thought I wouldn't mind if my art were used to create a
> concrete example for the purpose of discussion. (I did mind, but I decided
> to discuss the matter and assume that your motives were pure even if your
> actions were not.) [...]

I mentioned Linda's interest in copyright education, because I think some of the non-art stuff on her website is misinformation, not education. I actually chose linking to the images on Linda's site, because I thought that only she could possibly find such linking provocative.

> For those who believe Keith's evaluation of my opinions, I can only suggest
> that you try to look at my words in the context of the entire page I wrote

I quoted a few paragraphs from Linda's website and gave URL of the complete page.

> and consider them in a context that makes sense to YOUR livelihood. Would
> you mind if someone went to your employer and offered to do your job for
> free? If you own a restaurant, would you mind if the city council and the
> churches in town decided it would be good for tourism and church coffers if
> there were a perpetual food festival set up on the sidewalk right outside
> your establishment? If you are a doctor, would you mind if pharmacists claim
> the right to write prescriptions for free so patients don't have to visit a
> doctor for simple prescriptions?

You've just described a world (except for the city council part) that I'd love to live in. Sure, I'd be chagrinned when my employer said he was letting me go because someone else was going to undercut me on salary, but I'd ask my employer to consider the quality of work he's getting for free. If it's anywhere close to the quality he's getting from me, he'd be a fool not to take it. The restauranteur above should either move to some place else (perhaps some place like a mall that could guarantee that he won't get that sort of competition), or he should get into another business, like selling souvenirs of the food festival. I'd like to be able to prescribe or even make or grow my own drugs. If I feel like I need advice and well-made drugs, I'd go to a pharmacist, and if I was really sick, I'd go to a doctor. All of these choices would have different prices, and I'd pick to some degree based on that. Sometimes I'd realize that I paid too much and went to a doctor when I just had a cold, and sometimes I'd realize that I'd paid too little, and smoking a joint didn't substitute for gall bladder surgery. If the doctor doesn't like that his monopoly on prescribing (and the pharmacists monopoly on dispensing) is gone, he can find other work.

I (Keith) wrote earlier:
>... I'm not going to dismiss anything she writes here as the
>rantings of that crazy lady who thinks that people giving their
>own stuff away is hurting her;

Here I apologize to Linda. I meant only to indicate that I would not attempt to refute her claims in this forum ad hominem, or based on the particular opinion which stuck in my craw. I see why she would think that I was referring to her as crazy, though. I do believe, however, that her opinion stated in the paragraphs that I quoted from her website is crazy, and I continue to characterize it as "people giving their own stuff away is hurting her."

> I've reconsidered your motives and actions in light of the way you posted
> opinions I expressed on my web site and characterized them as "the rantings
> of a crazy lady." Now, it seems as if you are attempting to goad me into
> bringing an infringement case against you which includes 1202 implications.
> Is that your goal? Are you hoping to test your position in court?

That's reading a lot into it. Even if I really thought Linda were crazy, are there people out there who are inviting lawsuits from crazy people? I have no goal of having anyone bring any case against me in any court. Anyone who wishes to be sued by Linda is welcome to the code of the page I created, which I now place in the public domain (as if it had any reason to be covered by copyright, anyway). I'm not sure how you now successfully allegedly infringe her copyright now that she has adjusted her web server--is there any law against intent to infringe copyright?

Keith Handley
kehandley89[_at_]alumni.amherst.edu Received on Tue Oct 07 2003 - 00:55:03 GMT