On Sat, 27 Nov 1999 23:20:31 +0000, glenn morton wrote:
>BV>I'm
>>grateful to Steven for doing all that reading. He often he posts the
entire
>>article on the board.
GM>Posting the entire article is often forbidden and thus violates the
>copyright laws. It doesn't seem to be the 'right' thing to do. Quotes are
>ok, the whole thing from the AP or Reuters or whatever usually violates
>statements that forbid the republication of the article.
Thanks to Glenn for airing this. I have often thought about this
but ever since I joined the Reflector people have posted large
slices of articles and books to the Reflector, and I have always
assumed that it was OK.
My understanding is that the copyright laws came into existence in
the hardcopy world to protect the authors' ability make a living
from their writings, which were time-consuming and expensive to
produce.
But nowadays with email and the web such writing is more like the
equivalent of speaking which, AFAIK, is not copyright.
Technically *everything* someone writes, even emails, is copyright
and no one should copy it without the author's permission. Even if
the author doesn't put "copyright (c) Author's Name" at the bottom,
courts have held it is still copyright.
Most books have a statement at the beginning that says that "no
part of this book shall be stored on a computer database or be
copied without the publishers permission...". So even Glenn's
"quotes" which he says are "ok" are a breach of these copyright
statements, just as much as me posting an article.
My interpretation is that the authors and publishers are not really
concerned at private people quoting from their books or articles,
providing they aren't used for commercial gain and the authors
don't lose any income by less of their books being sold.
But legally they have to make absolute statements at the front of
their books or foot of their articles that *no* part whatsover of
their books or articles are to be used without their permission.
In the case of books I quote from, I usuually have bought the book
and in the case of web articles subscription is free, so no author is
out of pocket.
Also this Reflector is a relatively closed discussion group and
copies made are limited. There is a strong public interest case to be
made that such discussion groups are virtually an extension of
free personal speech and should not be restricted unduly by laws which
primarily relate to the hardcopy world.
If the copyright laws were applied literally this Reflector would
probably cease to exist because all that it would then be is one
person's unsubstantiated statements versus another's (for some this
might not be a problem! :-) ). It would be illegal to supply quotes to
back up one's claim. Even the *title* of the book or article is
covered by their copyright statements.
If the Moderator wants to make a rule that no whole articles are
posted, I will of course comply. Failing that, I would be interested
in there being a debate about this to ascertain the consensus. But in
the absence of such a ruling or such a consensus, I am not going to
stop posting articles and quotes.
But, having said that, since my Weekly Web Watch idea failed, I am
still considering posting only a summary of articles plus their web links.
I might start doing this again, but less articles more regularly in order
to save space and the number of posts.
Steve
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Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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