copyright & domain names

At 08:45 AM 3/6/96 -0500, Carl Oppedahl wrote:
>
> Is there "any potential liability"? The answer is clearly yes. The
> usenet posting is a work, almost certainly containing original matter,
> that has been fixed in a tangible medium. There is no assurance that
> quoting the posting will later, in court, be held to have been "fair
> use".

You are right, Carl... but think about it: I don't think a U.S. Court wouldn't see as fair use a citation of someone's work which was freely made avaliable and distributed in such an immense media which is the Internet.

Ok... only a few ppl might be signed to the newsgroups, but everyone can have access to the info, if they really want to dig into old archives and files from a group, right??

> Finally, while courts will probably someday say that the poster
> (by posting) granted a license for the posting to be propagated in the
> ways that all news postings are propagated, there is no reason to think
> that the license extends to all subsequent copying. (These reasons are
> discussed at some length in "Can other people copy my email or news
> postings?" at http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht#cen, which I will not
> quote here to save ink; interested parties should consult that URL.)

I'll check that one.

> Well, there is no need to analogize it to a "letter" in particular to
> be able to reach the conclusion that in it, the author retains copyright.
> The author just as well retains copyright in any work fixed in a tangible
> medium, etc. in the absence of some clear indication that copyright has
> been renounced. No such clear renunciation is present in your
> hypothetical.

The author retains the copyright and he did not renounced to it. I just think that the way used to disseminate it brings a question whether he might have an abrupt interest in going after someone who quoted it when he distributed those words for all through the net. But I don't mean to say that one can copy things without giving credit to the author. I'd just give the credit of the words to author and let things flow..

> The author presumably intends that it be disseminated in the way that
> usenet postings are necessarily disseminated, that seems clear.
>
> I don't think there is any scarcity of case law that would make the
> first question (is there "any potential liability"?) difficult to
> answer. There are plenty of cases (at least in the US, which I assume
> is the country you are concerned about, though you didn't say) saying
> that any work fixed in a tangible medium is protected by copyright.
> There are cases saying that the mere fact of something being physically
> easy to copy due to its medium does not mean the writer is giving up
> all rights by virtue of placing the work in that medium. (The ready
> availability of photocopiers does not mean the publisher of a book is
> giving up all rights, for example.)

I rememeber studying those... Here in brazil, we had a decision also saying that the fixed media doesn't really matter, as long as there is the publication itself. Published through the Internet, in floppy disks... it's all under protection. I am just waiting for a case to use those in.

BTW, I am now studying possibilities of domain names as trademarks in Brazil. IMHO, yes, they are trademarkable themselves, but the problem is that some PTO examiners refused applications for "domain names" in the communication services class, keeping them only as data processing services. I am thinking about filing a petition on the PTO in order to get a clarification opinion on this matter (In Brazil, you can do this) but there is some other stuff which is still confusing me on that so I really wanted to know from you all:

1- Do u think domain names are registrable TDM's in your country?

2- Do u also feel that fitting domains in the communications section wouldn't fit them better than compare them with data processing and software services??

Just personal opinions, not for business use. Don't take them as legal advice, if you do so..it's on your own risk ...hehehhehehe..:)

DIRCEU PEREIRA
IP- new media lawyer
<dpsrosa[_at_]ax.ibase.org.br> Received on Sat Mar 09 1996 - 18:19:21 GMT