Re: who owns newsgroup discussion thread?

Re: who owns newsgroup discussion thread?

I think this is the third or fourth time this issue has been discussed extensively on the CNI-COPYRIGHT list since it started up in 1992. Anybody who cares to can find postings (under my name) which outline the CNI position on this issue, as well as the offerings of a large number of other people who helped us formulate this policy but who seem curiously absent from this discussion. Search at:

   http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright/

On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Melissa Belvadi <silvest[_at_]maryville.edu> wrote:
>
> I think it is clear that the authors have copyright in their own
> messages.
>
> What is not clear is whether they have basically given the entire
> Internet an implied license to use their writings by choosing to
> submit them to the Usenet network of message propogation.

Further to this statement, I would like to add two points (or counterpoints, you decide):

In all honesty, I think the technical architecture of the information delivery systems at hand is irrelevant. As Melissa has noted, Usenet operates in an extremely non-centralized way. But, IMO, this has no bearing on the copyright law any more than would be the case if Stephen King handed out his next book one page at a time from street corners in one hundred different (U.S.) cities. The bottom line is that Mr. King wrote it, and (at least in the United States) the copyright is his. Period. He doesn't have to mark it, he doesn't have to register it unless he wants to pursue a violation of his rights in a court of law.

As Bob Stock already noted in this thread, the only way an author/creator can transfer his/her rights is by superseding those rights with a signed contract explicitly transferring them.

Secondly, as to the issue of an implied license... this is the general premise under which we operate the CNI lists. For lack of any technical infrastructure to otherwise support rights management -- something which I would like to *emphatically* state, I am not endorsing -- we can only assume the author of any given piece of mail has (impliedly) given our organization a license for a single, one-time distribution of the message.

However, I would note (again under my understanding of U.S. law, and based upon discussions I have had with many copyright-savvy individuals on this list and elsewhere), it is far from evident that such a proposition is any more enforceable than the shrink wrap contracts which we all reluctantly tolerate with software.

Any legal dispute (in the U.S.) has the potential to be settled in a court of law, but usually there is money involved. Judicial precedence in this issue might help, but it is not clear to me there is legal precedent for either of these scenarios (shrink wrap licenses or implied consent distribution in the Internet). Furthermore, I doubt there will be any significant precedent on the e-mail licensing issue any time soon as it seems fairly evident there is little financial incentive for pursuing the issue.

In the meantime... caveat scibor. As I tell my students, and other interested parties, don't write anything in an e-mail message -- even one you send your own mother -- that you wouldn't be willing to stand up and shout out in a crowded public space...

{disclaimer}
I am not a lawyer, and I rarely play one on the Internet. Furthermore, this is not legal advice now, nor will it ever be. If you want advice see a licensed legal practitioner in the jurisdiction of your domicile. {/disclaimer}

-- 

   Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
   Coalition for Networked Information
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C.   20036
   Internet: craig[_at_]cni.org   AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098