Re: A question on WWW copyright

Alexandr Draganov (draganov[_at_]curly.sed.stel.com) writes:
>
> Suppose, a company hires another company or an individual to do some
> research (e.g., study potential markets) using WWW. As a result, a
> report containing excerpts from various WWW sources is compiled and
> passed to the customer. Sources used may or may not be subject to
> copyright restrictions. Does this activity constitutes a violation
> of copyright laws by a person/company which compiles the report ?
> If yes, what actions should be taken to avoid these violations ?
>
> Based on what I was able to read, this question may be relevant to the
> "fair use" doctrine. Two factors can be taken into account: (i) all
> information is factual in nature, and (ii) in each case, only a small
> unsubstantial fraction of the original is used/cited to produce a
> final report.

Well, based on my reading of this list for the past 3+ years, I think it fair to claim that this group has not come to any real agreement on your basic question. It seems likely that you will get conflicting advice predominently arising from the following perspectives:

Position A. Placing something on the web and making it visible to the world implies

1. that the poster gives consent to others to copy it and to do various things with it from there: including to read, quote, store, forward, print, and derive therefrom but not including to sell, claim authorship, or remove notification of authorship

and

2) that the poster has the right to be posting (i.e., that they are the copyright holder or have permission to be posting from the copyright holder)

Position B. Presence on the web merely constitutes permission to "browse" and to read -- and that any use beyond reading will constitute a possible violation.

The white paper seems to promote greater privatization of information in the US in which case the law is likely to become more like Position B. Accordingly, one would not do anything (beyond contemplation) with information obtained on the net unless a) license is explicitly granted (e.g., a statement that says you can do such and so with this info), b) permission is obtained (e.g., in response to a request), c) fair use exemptions apply (here though, one is guilty until proven innocent), or d) money is paid (which is apparently the best of all possible worlds from the perspective of Position B).

>****Please, answer directly to draganov[_at_]curly.sed.stel.com ****

cc: draganov[_at_]curly.sed.stel.com

David Dailey
(ddailey[_at_]williams.edu)

[if you don't like Position A, you can send checks :) ] Received on Wed Sep 20 1995 - 16:28:46 GMT