Knight-Rider reprise

First-- for the newcomers to this list, some background (*recollections*) may be helpful:

[Early last summer Knight-Rider (the copyright holder of the Mike Royko and Dave Barry newspaper columns) sent a notice to the people *paying* for online subscriptions to these columns. In part, the subscribers were told that they would have their service discontinued. It seems that one or two Knight-Rider employees had obtained "second hand copies". Based on this, Knight-Rider *assumed* that the piracy was wide spread throughout the internet/BBS world and they decided therefore to stop this subscription service.]

Recently a newspaper columnist who answers all kinds of reader's questions on all sorts of topics printed a Q/A that might be of interest to _some_ in this group. The question relates to two recent Mike Royko columns that dealt with the "Easy Trim"(TM??) toenail clippers. The person(questioner) was planning to buy a bunch of clippers as Christmas gifts and would like to include the columns as part of the package.

The reader wrote (in part):
. . ."Do you or your readers remember the dates the columns
appeared? I would then be able to make copies at the library."

The "sarcastic" reply from the columnist seemed to imply that the newspaper had been inundated with callers asking this very *same* question. The columnist responded (again in part):

. . . "Once again, we ran those columns on Oct. 23 and Nov. 7" . . . he further states he could "recite those dates in his sleep."

Many questions to this group can be imagined... 1) doesn't all this smack of a "double standard"? i.e. the newspaper is not telling people where to order "reprints" of the columns! But rather by them providing the dates to readers, are they not unwittingly encouraging the world to photocopy articles and snail-mail them all over? Is the difference between a photocopy and an etext THAT big? [*potentially* it might be.]

2) Why is it fair use to photocopy, but not scan or OCR (optical character recognition) these columns? (or is it?) I assume the answer would relate to the "market impact test". If i uploaded these columns to the usenet or a large listserver there would be problems with possible infringement. But e-mailing OCR'd newspaper articles to a few friends on the net would probably be a fair use.

These questions and the dozens of others i might ask are intended to be *rhetorical!* (de minimus non curat lex?) but the ramifications of all this are interesting. Especially if you consider the unprecedented popularity of the toenail clippers based on Royko's unwitting "advertisement". The market impact test of fair use seems to fail in a BIG way on this one instance!? i.e. It is conceivable that millions of people are photocopying 2-10 or more? copies of these two columns and THAT would certainly be a significant market impact on the sale of reprints! (*assuming* reprints CAN even be obtained officially?)

So assuming there is no easy scapegoat to capitalize on here-- can we expect a letter from Knight-Rider to the effect that:

. . ."it has come to our attention that people are copying
articles by Mike Royko--therefore his columns will no longer be published!" ;-)

Charles Keller (non-lawyer)
keller[_at_]ra.msstate.edu

_my_ "Fortune Cookie" said: "If photocopiers, scanners, computers, and the internet were outlawed, only *outlaws* would have them." ;-) Received on Wed Dec 14 1994 - 00:41:28 GMT