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Aucbvax.5921 fa.digest-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!digest-people Fri Jan 22 21:52:59 1982

>From decvax!yale-comix!leichter@Berkeley Fri Jan 22 21:44:33 1982 I sent the enclosed message out to USENET net.general; unc!smb suggested that you people should get a copy, so here it is. I've included his message to me at the end since it contains some good examples:

There has been some discussion on the net about copyright protection. Most of it has been uninformed and generally just plain wrong. Before someone gets burned on this, here is (a closer approximation to) the facts. (If you want certainty about the details, you'll have to contact a lawyer who is a wizard in the field.)

- Making copies for a "closed group" doesn't have any effect on copy- right protect. Neither does whether you are making the copy for profit or not. In fact, making a copy of a book for your own personal library, which you NEVER let anyone else use, is as much a violation of the copyright as making a million copies and selling them. (The dama- ges you might be libel for would be different, but you COULD receive a large fine even for the single copy, under the right circumstances.) The "fair use" provision is a very specific set of exceptions. I don't know exactly how it is worded, but one of the things that publi- shers wanted - and got, I think - is the EXCLUSION of such things as a professor making copies of a paper for all members of his class. In principle, the professor must pay the copyright holder a fee for such use. I find it very doubtful that sending out hundreds of copies of material on a network would be considered "fair use" if you were sending out anything more than brief quotations.

- Including a reference to the copyright holder has no bearing whatso- ever on whether something is a violation. In fact, such a reference would only constitute proof that the violator knew that the material was copyrighted.

- There would be no distinction, as far as copyright laws are con- cerned, between feeding news directly from a newswire into the net and typing it in by hand. Mark's comment tha this is like typing in the text of a newspaper article is exactly right - BOTH are violations.

Further, even typing in a PARAPHRASE is a violation. Copyright laws protect not just the exact text but its overall structure - the work that went into the text. A court would have to decide whether the alleged paraphrase just coincidentally looked like the original, or if it was more in the nature of a "translation". (Translations into other languages ARE fully protected.) The basic raised would be things like order of presentation, what was included/excluded, etc. Judges have traditionally viewed paraphrasers as people trying to sneak past the protection and have been especially harsh on them.

- In any case, newswire services generally provide their product under a license that is significantly more restrictive than copyright. I doubt you can even allow people to log in to your machine over a net to read the service, much less send it out! Check your contract...

Most of us view copyright laws a nuisances to be gotten around. It is help to understand the way the courts look at them. A copyright is a form of "intellectual property" protected by the state in exactly the way that rights to physical property are protect. As the creator and owner of a piece of intellectual property, I have the right, within limits, to decide who may use it and how, and to receive payment for such use. If you abuse my "copy right", you are stealing from me and I have a cause of action against you.

So be careful! Networks and electronic media in general are too new for the laws governing them to be totally clear yet. However, this doesn't give you license to do clearly stupid, or clearly wrong, things. -- Jerry (decvax!yale-comix!leichter)

From decvax!duke!unc!smb Wed Jan 20 01:36:40 1982 Full-Name: Steven M. Bellovin To: duke!decvax!yale-com!leichter Subject: copyright stuff

Thanx for an excellent exposition on the topic. I'm not sure you're right that "fair use" doesn't include making a private copy of an entire book, but I'm not a lawyer. Two other points: first, University libraries subscribe to a clearing-house that collects royalties on papers copied for Professor's classes. Anything over a threshhold (which may be 1) requires a payment; typically, a journal that is a member of this clearing-house will print in each issue what fee they charge (CACM does, for example). Second is the "Betamax" case, wherein an appeals court ruled that taping TV programs off the air is a copyright violation. I suspect that that will be overturned -- the law specifically allows the same behavior for audio recordings -- but for now, it stands.

I *strongly* urge you to send a copy of your note to ucbvax!digest-p; those guys really need to see it, too. (Obviously, I shouldn't send it in myself -- it would be awfully tacky to send in someone else's contribution on copyrights....)

-- Jerry (decvax!yale-comix!leichter)

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