Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Message-ID: <1989Sep20.055042.5595@twwells.com>
Date: 20 Sep 89 05:50:42 GMT
References: <2048@avsd.UUCP> <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Sep16.190722.8517@twwells.com> <1989Sep17.180618.1434@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Sep18.073009.15189@twwells.com> <1989Sep18.123046.20135@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 58

In article <1989Sep18.123046.20135@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes:
: >In article <1989Sep17.180618.1434@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> I write:
: >There are three possible copyrights involved. The first is the UUCP
: >Mapping Project's, the second is that of each person who submits a
: >compilation of maps, and the third is that of the individual map
: >entry submitter. The first should have rights to the entire
: >collection of maps, the second should have rights to each posting,
: >but the question is open as to whether the third has any rights at
: >all. Given that the individual map entries are fixed in form and of
: >strictly informational content, I believe, by analogy to decisions in
: >the print publishing field, that copyright does not apply.
:
: Sounds about right to me, except that I suspect the author of the
: individual map entry does retain copyright, as far as it goes, but has
: implicitly granted all sorts of usage rights by submitting the entry.

My reason for believing that the submitter of the original map entry
does not have a copyright is this: copyright does not extend to
something for which there is pretty much only one way to do it. Form
filling (which is mostly what a map entry is) is just that. But, as I
said, it is an open issue.

: >[Usenet is most like a publishing medium so:]
: >I expect that the law will say that distribution of postings via
: >Usenet and its associated mechanisms is not a violation of copyright.
: >The argument for that one is simple: posting to the net implies that
: >one grant agency to the net (considered as an entity) for the
: >purposes of propagating the message. If that argument is accepted,
: >the author can not enforce restrictions on the propagation of
: >postings on normal channels of Usenet since, by posting, he has to
: >allow Usenet to act as his agent.
:
: Yes, but what exactly *IS* Usenet?

The law tends to be pretty pragmatic about these things. My guess is
that they will say that Usenet is a collection of entities which do
automatic processing of news for local reading, forwarding, or other
purposes closely tied to the newsgroups (like processing
comp.mail.maps). And that posting grants agency sufficient to make
the automatic processing legal. This, BTW, probably does void your
copyright notice.

: >That is a possibility. Which suggests that the right way is for there
: >to be a series of small suits, each carefully selected to test one
: >piece of the law. This does not have to be acrimonious.
:
: It doesn't have to be acrimonious, but I doubt that enough people will
: spend the time or money to conduct a lawsuit without some bad feelings
: either existing or being created in the process.

Well, Usenet generates bad feelings in its normal processes, just as
any other social activity can; the question is not whether those
things will arise but whether they will get out of control.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com