Re: Copyright Infringement Happening at Conference Group - Help!

On 17, July 1998, Bruce Hayden <bhayden[_at_]uswest.net> wrote:
>
> Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote:
> >
> > Since this started with me, can someone explain why merely repeating
> > something to a list of recipients who have already received it
> > constitutes "copying"?
>
> At one level, you have answered yourself. Repeating a work to a list
> of recipients is obviously copying the work. That is precisely what
> "repeating" here implies.
>
> However, to go into a little more depth, the primary rights of
> a copyright holder are spelled out in 17 USC 106. Of particular
> interest here are the first two: reproduction and creation of
> derivitive works:
>
> Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under
> this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of
> the following:
> (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or
> phonorecords;
> (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted
> work;
>
> Section 101 of the Copyright Act includes definitions. Starting
> at the top:
>
> 'Copies' are material objects, other than phonorecords, in
> which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed,
> and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or
> otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a
> machine or device. The term 'copies' includes the material
> object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first
> fixed.
>
> A work is 'fixed' in a tangible medium of expression when its
> embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of
> the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to
> be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period
> of more than transitory duration. A work consisting of sounds,
> images, or both, that are being transmitted, is 'fixed' for
> purposes of this title if a fixation of the work is being made
> simultaneously with its transmission.
>
> When you send email, the copy of the email in my mailbox is, you
> guessed it, a "copy" under the Copyright Act. It can be "perceived,
> reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the
> aid of a machine or device". That is because I can read it using
> my computer.
>
> However, when you send email across the Internet, more copies than
> just the ones in recipients' mailboxes are invariably made. This is
> because of the operation of mail, etc. in that medium. First, some
> mail is delivered in a store and forward operation. This requires
> that copies of the mail are moved from machine to machine. These all
> are legally "copies". However, not so obviously, beyond this, all
> electronic communications using computers invariably requires that a
> copy of the item being transmitted be loaded into volatile memory
> (such as RAM). It is then transmitted across a communications link,
> received, and collected (or buffered) in the memory of the next
> computer. Surprisingly, there is legal precedent that copies in RAM
> are sufficiently fixed to qualify under the Copyright Act as "copies".
>
> As for Web pages, they almost invariably are cached on your hard
> drive. Thus, even if the RAM copies aren't copies under copyright,
> the cached copies surely are.
>
> The result of this is that when you send email, post to a newsgroup,
> or download a Web page, numerous "copies" of the work are
> made. This is reproduction under 17 USC 106(1).

Perhaps I should have said "infringing copies" rather than just "copies". My error.

Michael A Scarpitti
Assistant Editor
Materials Evaluation
1711 Arlingate Lane
PO Box 28518
Columbus, Ohio 43228-0518
800 222-2768 Ext 207
614 274-6003 Ext 207
Fax 614 274-6899
<mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> Received on Mon Jul 20 1998 - 13:08:51 GMT