Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Message-ID: <1989Sep17.180618.1434@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 17 Sep 89 18:06:18 GMT
References: <2048@avsd.UUCP> <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Sep16.190722.8517@twwells.com>
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Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
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bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes:
>Here we go again....

Let's hope not. So far, this is still a limited exchange :-).

>In article <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> I write:
>: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:
>: >USENET ? Isn't that in the public domain ?
>:
>: According to my recollection of the copyright law changes in 1989, no.
>: I seem to recall the copyright laws are now such that there is an
>: implied copyright unless it's explicitly waived.

>That is correct. And the compilers of the maps, not the individuals
>who provides the map entries hold the copyright. The individual map
>entries may or may not be copyrighted; that is a fine point I haven't
>looked up.

That wasn't exactly my point, though it is true. My point was that each
individual article was copyrighted by its author, and that redistribution
of articles could be affected by that copyright. The map maintainers
probably have a compilation copyright (just like Brad Templeton), but
the map entries are almost certainly copyrighted by their respective
authors. However:

>This particular issue has been hashed over in the publishing
>business. A user of something like the maps may not duplicate the
>maps themselves (other than for "fair use") but may make use of the
>*information* contained therein.

I'm sure this is correct, and I wasn't attempting to argue otherwise. My
point was about resending articles in full, not using excerpts or
information from them. Excerpts of articles almost certainly come under
fair use, and the information contained in Usenet postings (including
the maps) is there for anyone to use, including the mailing list people.

>: If it gets to that point, we've ALL already lost...

>I think that a lawsuit settling the copyright issue on Usenet would
>freshen a lot of stale air. We really do need to know whether the
>Usenet is legally a publishing medium (nevermined that in reality it
>is: the law frequently invents its own reality); we really do need to
>know if any of our copyrights are valid, in particular the GNU
>copyleft and other forms of redistribution restriction.

In some ways I agree. If we could somehow find out these things without
a real court, I'd love it. But that's obviously impossible, and my fear
is that all the noise generated by a full-scale lawsuit of this form
might destroy the organizations it's supposed to protect: if Usenet
(what is Usenet, anyway, that it can be sued? Will each admin be help
liable separately? Or the posters? Or the sites?) winds up defending
itself, the resulting stress might destroy Usenet as we know it (yes,
yes, I know: Imminent Death of the Net predicted :-)). Similarly, a
GNU suit might result in 1) the FSF wins outright --- and lots of
developers stop using GNU tools, or 2) the FSF loses, and stops writing
free software (which, if the copyright were to be judged non-binding,
they might very well do).

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.