Re: archiving on inet

[Kirk Sheppard <kshep@netcom.com>]

Usenet copyrightable? I still doubt it. Of course, the only way to 
find out is to file a very expensive lawsuit. Most posters would not find 
their postings worth the expense to sue on copyright. Only a very rich 
dilletante, or someone less rich who is a fanatic on the subject is 
likely to do so.  Also, you would have a hard time answering the 
difference between charging for a usenet feed and charging for a cd-rom, 
again I see little difference except that one is more prompt in time than 
the other. But, again, my newsfeed from a BBS which might be 24 hrs 
delayed, and my netcom account which is much faster and a cd-rom differs 
only as to time removed from the original posting. 

Kirk Sheppard

kshep@netcom.com

P. O. Box 30911             "It is  Better to Die on Your Feet Than to 
Bethesda, MD 20824-0911      Live On Your Knees."
U.S.A.
			    			     - Emiliano Zapata


On Tue, 1 Feb 1994, Jason Zions wrote:

> 
> > Furthermore, just because something is forwarded and something is archived
> >I don't believe is expressly covered in copyright law.
> 
> It's not the forwarding or the archiving that makes anything covered by
> copyright law; it is the setting down, in concrete form, the expression of
> an idea.
> 
> > Others could argue that postings by their very nature, when posted 
> >become "public domain", and thus not copyrightable.
> 
> Not successfully in court, I should think. How is a posting any different
> than the production of a radio program which is distributed by
> store-and-forward satellite distribution and then played through the radio
> station and received at your home radio? The mechanisms are close to
> identical in their attributes; tapes at the stations have some lifetime,
> timeshifting can occur, special equipment is needed to perceive the work,
> etc.
> 
> >Finally what is the tangible difference between storing usenet postings 
> >on a hard disk for an indefinite time, or on a cd-rom, or a cd that is 
> >re-writable, or tape or any other storage device? Not very much I would 
> >argue.
> 
> If you were a ligitimate recipient of the work in the first place (i.e. got
> it in a newsfeed) and you store those postings for your own use or for the
> use of others on that node in the store-and-forward network, then you can
> keep the work 'til the bits rot. Infringement occurs when you copy those
> bits onto some medium for some purpose other than store-and-forward
> propagation or the allowed fair-use exceptions; stuffing articles on a
> CD-ROM and selling them falls into neither category and hence is an
> infringement.
> 
> Jason
>