Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!algor2.algorists.com!jeffrey
From: jeffrey@algor2.algorists.com (Jeffrey Kegler)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Message-ID: <1989Sep23.200844.22022@algor2.algorists.com>
Date: 23 Sep 89 20:08:44 GMT
References: <10017@ucsd.Edu> <3833@itivax.iti.org> <1989Sep21.220406.14140@algor2.algorists.com> <328@sci34hub.UUCP>
Reply-To: jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM (Jeffrey Kegler)
Organization: Algorists, Inc.
Lines: 62

In article <328@sci34hub.UUCP> gary@sci34hub.UUCP (Gary Heston) writes:
>In article jeffrey@algor2.algorists.com (Jeffrey Kegler) writes:
>> It is not clear to me that mailing lists can be copyrighted.
>
>I believe this is an incorrect assumption. Call TIDS (Technical Information
>Distribution Service), or any magazine (Byte, for example) who sells their 
>subscriber list and ask if their mailing list and it's subsets are
>copyrighted. I think their reply will be a most emphatic YES! 

But do they believe their own answer?  Their actions show they do not.

After asking if their mailing list is copyrighted, ask also if they have
registered it with the Copyright Office, enclosing the appropriate copies.
(This is necessary for them to file suit for infringement).  I will bet the
answer is no, because they do not want to release the copies.  And hence
they will never file for infringement.

What they are doing is treating the mailing list as a trade secret.
This means of protection, unlike patent and copyright, does not
require disclosure.  Something can never be both a trade secret and
copyrighted.

Anyone can claim a copyright.  I can post Moby Dick to the net with my
.signature asserting a copyright below it.  The question is could such
a copyright be defended in court (even given legal resources were
free).  The sellers of mailing list will never even attempt such a
defense.

>Otherwise, nothing could prevent someone from buying a mailing list
>and then reselling it in competition with the originator.

Wrong.  There is also trade secret protection, which is in fact what
they rely on.  They require buyers to agree not to reuse the list, and
take steps (such as not distributing it in electronic form) to ensure
that others not bound by agreements cannot get their hands on it.  Of
course, such agreements are legally enforceable on the people who have
signed them.

After all, think about it.  Copyrights are for original creative
efforts.  Imagine the lawyer trying to argue with a straight face that
a subscriber list or the UUCP maps are "literary works".  [ Note:
compilations can be copyrighted, but they must involve creative
effort.  An example of a copyrightable compilation is a book of
"Greatest Poetry of the 18th Century", which incorporates a lot of
creative thought.  An unselected list of subscriber names and
addresses is hardly what is meant. ]

>> I suspect the UUCP maps are fair game for abuse, legally, much as I
>> regret that.
>
>There's alwasy flame wars...... Anybody grepping the maps for a mailing 
>list is obviously connected to the net somehow. Dropping their postage-
>prepaid cards and envelopes in the mail without filling them in is also
>a simple means of expressing displeasure, since it costs them money...

All of the above is clearly illegal.  To defend a right of dubious (at
best) legal standing by clearly illegal steps is not wise.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, Independent UNIX Consultant, Algorists, Inc.
jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090