Re: archiving on inet

[lefty@apple.com (Lefty)]

Kirk "I Can't Believe It's a Law Firm!" Sheppard astounds me by posting
>
>This book analogy is not accurate. It is my contention that usenet 
>postings are not copyrighted.  Our postings are not disseminated like a book...

Immaterial.  What on earth does "like a book" mean?  Do you contend that
only works printed on paper can have copyright protection, or only works
which are sold in bookstores, or only works which are bound in signatures?

As a trivial counterexample, movies broadcast over cable and songs played
on the radio retain copyright, without any question or doubt.  They aren't
"disseminated like a book", either.

>we are paid nothing for the use of our postings on the multitude 
>of machines that our postings appear.

Are you suggesting that there is any connection whatsoever between the
ability to copyright a given work and some third party's willingness to pay
for it?

Are you claiming that if I write a book and decide to give copies away
rather than sell them that my work is thereby not copyrighted?  If so,
you're clearly and without any doubt whatsoever in error.

Are you _positive_ you're a lawyer?

>Or, in the alternative, if copyrighted, by posting them in the electronic
>>ether, we give up most of our rights regarding dissemination, copying etc.

Aha.  This would explain why there's no legal problem with my recording the
complete works of the Beatles off the radio and then reselling them, no
doubt.

>Perhaps we may still 
>have some residual rights regarding accuracy and the like. Also the 
>posting regarding the legal blurbs on software, really was off point, 
>since what they they were refering to was a "license", and again there is 
>some doubt about how enforceable the individual licenses that the 
>software companies give. That is, some of these licenses may have 
>provisions that are not enforceable.

So, let's see here.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm Stephen King.

I write a book, using a word processing program on my computer, and saving
the results to a magmeto-optical disk.  Is it copyrighted?  Clearly, it is.

I sell the book to a publisher, who prints it onto paper, sews the paper
into signatures, binds it between covers, and sells several million
instantiations of this book to B. Dalton's.  Is it still copyrighted? 
Clearly, it is.

THe publisher takes a copy of my magneto-optical disk, adds some support
software licensed from Voyager, Inc., and presses a CD-ROM version of my
book.  Is it still copyrighted?  Clearly, it is.

At the same time, I distribute several long sections of the book, via
email, to a private mailing list of friends.  Is the book still
copyrighted?  Clearly, it is.

OK, now, here's the tough one.  I give one of my friend's permission to
post a long (i.e. clearly too long to constitute "fair use") section of
this book to rec.arts.books, with a copyright notice prominently displayed
at the very beginning of the posting, i.e.

          Copyright (c) 1994 by Stephen King.  All rights reserved.

You claim that this posting, suddenly and magically, no longer enjoys
copyright protection.  On what basis?

To approach this issue in another way, I wonder whether you're familiar
with "Internet Talk Radio", a scheme wherein voice broadcasts can be done
over the Internet.  If I were to pay the appropriate fees to ASCAP to allow
me to broadcast a song by Pearl Jam over Internet Talk Radio, are you
claiming that Pearl Jam's copyright to _their_ _own_ _music_ would be
destroyed by _my_ having played it back over this medium?  This would
clearly seem to be your contention.

I think you need to give this a wee bit more thought, Kirk.

--
Lefty (lefty@apple.com)
C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.