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From: rossj@dartvax.UUCP (Ross Jacobs)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Copyrights -- Dave Barry
Message-ID: <3082@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-May-85 00:15:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.3082
Posted: Fri May 17 00:15:22 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 06:17:51 EDT
References: <301@ucsbcsl.UUCP>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 65

> Well, as you may remember, I SINNED by posting a few
> Dave Barry columns -- but while I was doing it I sent him
> a note telling him I was doing it -- I just got the
> following reply today... it is interesting to get the
> horse's opinion straight from the horse's mouth. 
> Or something. 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> May 3, 1985
> 
> Dear Brent,
> 
> Well, shit, this is SUCH a sticky issue. See, they pay me
> to write this column, and they feel that therefore they own it,
> and they have many vicious lawyers who agree with them. Me,
> I figure, once I write it, I'd like people to read it, so
> I don't care a great deal how it gets disseminated, if that
> is in fact how you spell it. But then when I write something
> NOT for the Miami Herald, something where the rights belong
> to ME, I get, as you can well imagine, mightly irate when I see
> that some glottal stop publisher of some 
> pissant little newspaper simply reprints it and
> doesn't even ask my permission, let alone pay me. This happens
> all the time, and it makes me wish I had more close friends named
> Vinnie and Vito who owed me favors.
> 
> This is not, of course, what you are doing. You are just being
> a deranged college student sharing yuks electronically, which doesn't
> bother me. You can go right ahead, as far as I'm concerned. I just want you
> to know that (1) I have no legal right to grant you permission to
> do it -- only the Miami Herald does, and they won't; and (2) there
> is a reason people get upset about seeing copyright laws violated,
> because often (thogh not in your case), it
> amounts to theft of a writer's work, which is his property.
> 
> So have a nice day.
> 
>                                      Regards,
> 
>                                      Dave Barry
> 
> p.s. I have never benn able to get my ****ing modem to work.
> What does that mean?


     I don't like to gloat, generally. And somehow I don't feel this is a "vin-
dication" of my arguments. The fact is, though, the argument degenerated into
ethics/personal integrity/law and it would take a battery of logicians, profes-
sors and lawyers to come up with an answer, if one even exists.
     Implicitly, this letter constitutes "author's written permission". So I 
guess now we can't bitch about how illegal posting Dave Barry's old columns a
few months ago is.  But the question remains: If one's personal ethics violate 
the law, what can be done? No place like net.jokes.d for this sucker, is there...
     If we're gonna flame each other about ethics make it funny.
                                            --Ross
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
                                           Ross Jacobs
                                    {ihnp4,decvax,linus}!dartvax!rossj
                                      ARPA:  rossj%dartmouth@csnet-relay
                                     CSNET:  rossj@dartmouth
 
               Always be good. But if you can't be good, be careful...(-:
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