Re: Copyright Infringement Happening at Conference Group - Help!

Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> On 7/14/98, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
> >
> > John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Would you like to take a stab at explicating why someone taking
> > > something off the web violates copyright, but your repeating of the
> > > entirety of Brigid's message does not?
> >
> > Fair use. When one sends an Email, one issues a fair use license
> > for others to forward it withor without comment. That is the nature
> > of the medium.
>
> I don't think I agree, at least not with the outer bounds of what you're
> saying. First, I think it's more likely that when one copies e-mail
> in a discussion list and sends it *to the list* that this is implied
> license rather than fair use. Second, as with any implied license, the
> scope of it may not be crystal clear. I doubt that many would argue
> that copying it within the list is implied, but I'm not as sure that the
> consensus would be as strong for copying it without the list. And if
> you're talking about e-mail in general, I would strongly disagree that
> sending one person's e-mail to others without permission is fair use or
> implied license.

I think I would summarize this discussion (perhaps unfairly, and perhaps a bit facetiously) as follows:

Just about everything is copyrighted

This causes unreasonable results, and makes us all violators of the law.

Therefore we shall invent an implied license to try to avoid unreasonable results (and a conclusion that we violate the law).

The existence and terms of the implied license and what it applies to are in doubt, though we would certainly assume that whatever we do would be covered by the implied license since life would otherwise be inconvenient.

This is regarded by many, particularly Congress, as a reasonable statutory scheme to advance the progress of knowledge.

Regards,
John

-- 
Regards,

John Lederer	
Oregon, Wisconsin
<johnl[_at_]ibm.net>