Re: Copyright Infringement Happening at Conference Group - Help!

Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> John H. Lederer, Thomas Workman, George Abbott, and others have been
> discussing the copying of emails in terms of something they are
> calling a " fair use license". I don't understand this term. If a
> use is "fair use" under the copyright statute, it doesn't NEED to be
> licensed -- and in fact, cannot be, because no licensable rights of
> the copyright owner are being exercised. That is what is meant by
> "fair use."
>
> The reason we can freely copy, distribute, and forward the emails of
> our colleagues is not because of a "fair use license" but because of
> an "implied license"--the original author's tacit acknwledgment that
> her email will be subjected to the standard, expected practices of
> email users on listservs, even though those practices, under normal
> copyright analysis, might well constitute infringement. Anyone who
> does not wish her email to be treated in this way need only post a
> notice expressly limiting the ways in which her copyrighted email
> may be reused.

Bob:

Note my copyright statement in my signature, which I attach to all of my email. I may not be a lawyer, but I am trying to be proactive about making sure that accepted practice for cyberspace falls more into the lines of protecting free speech, rather than regulating for corporate interests, or reducing the question to commercial property rights. Making commercial property rights to one's expression the "default" interpretation of what copyright law is for, leads to the law being overapplied in a medium for which it is ill suited. If, on the other hand, the "default" interpretation of what is covered by copyright, and what that copyright means, is the protection of free speech, then we gain the ability to be true to the medium. That is, everything is treated as copyrighted, but this is interpreted as meaning one has rights of asserting original authorship to one's recorded expression -- not so much to restricting the copying of it. Rights guarding against copying, etc., would then have to be explicitly reserved. The way things tend to be regarded, copyright law is seen as a set of legal precedents which assure that people may restrict _copying_ per se, rather than as a means of assuring that the original author gets original rights as the creator of his product. This viewpoint, however, basically means that free speech in cyberspace becomes regulated for the sake of commercial interests.

The thing is, I fully expect commercial and corporate interests to eventually gain dominance over free speech in cyberspace, so I believe that having a statement like this one, now, might enable me to assert my principles later. Does that make any sense?

The statement basically reserves only the right of original authorship, and reflects a view that copyright is really about _authorial_ rights. "Copyright," in my view, is increasingly a misnomer, if we mean to assure free speech in a medium that depends on copying for its fundamental functionality.

Now, between what the law says and what the law should be, there is very likely great disparity. I am curious about what you and the rest of the list think of this.

--

                         ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._
   Seth P. Johnson       `6_ 6  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.`)
                         (_Y_.)'  ._   )  `._ `. ``-..-'
                       _..`--'_..-_/  /--'_.' ,'
                      (il),-''  (li),'  ((!.-'

<differance[_at_]tritium.net>

This incidentally recorded communication is copyright 1998, by
Seth P. Johnson.  I reserve no rights restricting copying,
modification or distribution.  Original authorship should be
attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation
may hold according to traditional practice for social discourse
in which there is no exclusive claim of property.