Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Your articles sold for cash.
Message-ID: <7291@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 12 Aug 90 16:58:38 GMT
References: <26198@nigel.udel.EDU> <650145312.12585@minster.york.ac.uk>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Lines: 28

>In article <26198@nigel.udel.EDU> andrew@eleceng.bradford.ac.uk (Andrew G. Minter) writes:
>PD libraries are allowed to make a "reasonable charge" for conveying
>software, such as cost of postage, disk, cost of running the company, etc.
>If they are charging more than this then they are breaking the law. 

Nope.  When a work is in the public domain, anyone can do anything he wants
with it, including modifying it, selling it for an abitrary price, and much
more.  The only thing he can't do is get it out of the public domain.

This discussion of the law is getting a bit weary.  For people who want to
discuss copyright, public domain, and related issues, I strong recommend
the following book (written by 3 ACLU lawyers):

Title:	The Rights of Authors and Artists
Authors:K.P. Norwick, J.S. Chasen with H.R. Kaufman
Publ:   Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Ave, New York, N.Y. 10103
ISBN: 0-553-23654-7
Price: $3.95

It is only 200 pages and written for nonlawyers, but it explains everyone
you every wanted to know about copyright law, libel, and fun things like
that.  A lot of what is said in this and other groups about the law just
ain't so.  The book tends to examine things from a civil liberties point
of view (like the question of whether the statement: "All Lithuanians are
child molesters" in a book would be libel under the law), but it also
discusses the copyright law in considerable detail.  

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)