Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sjsca4!news
From: greg@bilbo (Greg Wageman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Contribution copyright query
Message-ID: <1989Aug4.165235.7757@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 4 Aug 89 16:52:35 GMT
References: <570023@otter.hpl.hp.com> <34033@grapevine.uucp>
Reply-To: greg@sj.ate.slb.com (Greg Wageman)
Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA
Lines: 62

In article <34033@grapevine.uucp> koreth (Steven Grimm) writes:
>In article <570023@otter.hpl.hp.com> gjh@otter.hpl.hp.com (Graham Higgins) writes:
>>I'd appreciate some guidance/instruction on the position of copyright on usenet
>>contributions. I am doing a bit of spare-time writing for one of the U.K. ST
>>mags (STWorld). Between us we have been considering doing a monthly "Best of ST
>>usenet" feature. 
>
>I don't see any real difference between that and BYTE's "Best of BIX" section
>from a while ago.  I certainly don't have a problem with it; my feeling is
>that people are free to do whatever they want with the stuff I post, as long
>as I'm given credit for it.

I'm sorry, Steven, but I disagree.  There is a world of difference.

First of all, now that the U.S. has signed the Bourne (sp?) copyright
convention, all writings are implicitly copyrighted, whether or not
they display a copyright notice.  You must explicitly disclaim
copyright.  Therefore, reproducing anything received from Usenet *in a
manner inconsistant with the normal distribution of Usenet* is a
possible infringement.  I word it this way because, by posting to the
net, the poster is assumed to be giving implicit consent for Usenet
systems to propogate the message.

Think of it as being published in a magazine.  You don't control by
whom the magazine is distributed or to whom it is sold; however, you
do expect that no one who receives the magazine will reproduce the
article in *another* magazine without your permission.

Secondly, users of BIX, Compuserve, GEnie, etc., have all signed a
contract with the service providers which explicitly gives them certain
rights to use our postings without informing or compensating us.  In
effect we have waived copyright on our postings to such services
unless specifically stated otherwise.  This is why BIX can do a "Best
of BIX" and reproduce it in Byte Magazine or some other form.

Usenet posters, on the other hand, have signed no such agreement.  At
best there is an implicit understanding that the poster agrees to
transmission and dissemination of his postings to other Usenet hosts.
Transcription to print is arguably *not* part of the normal channels
of Usenet distribution.

>Presumably, the people who don't want their postings used in your magazine
>will put a note to that effect in their articles (a copyright notice in a
>signature would suffice, I suppose.)  As long as you honor that, I can't
>see a problem with reprinting articles.

As I said in e-mail to the original poster, I would think the only
ethical way to do this would be to contact each and every poster whose
article they wished to reproduce.  If the poster wished to give them a
license for unlimited reproduction, that's the poster's business.
However I would not assume that I had any such license otherwise.

(I'm not a lawyer.  This is not legal advice, just my understanding of
copyright.)

Greg Wageman			DOMAIN: greg@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies	UUCP:   ...!uunet!sjsca4!greg
1601 Technology Drive		BIX:    gwage
San Jose, CA 95110-1397		CIS:    74016,352
(408) 437-5198			GEnie:  G.WAGEMAN
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Opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the author.