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From: jmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Copyrights -- Dave Barry - Read it again, Ross
Message-ID: <14536@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-May-85 04:58:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.14536
Posted: Sun May 19 04:58:18 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 08:42:19 EDT
References: <301@ucsbcsl.UUCP> <3082@dartvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29

In article <3082@dartvax.UUCP> rossj@dartvax.UUCP (Ross Jacobs) writes:
>> But then when I write 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.
>> 
>> 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 (though not in your case), it
>> amounts to theft of a writer's work, which is his property.
>>                                      Dave Barry
>
> Implicitly, this letter constitutes "author's written permission".
>                                           Ross Jacobs

Read it again Ross.  He says he doesn't care what we do with other's
property (in the case, stuff that belongs to the Miami Herald), but don't
steal from him.  I think that the "though not in your case" is there
because the property under discussion is not that of a writer, but of
a newspaper, so it's not theft of a "writer's" work.  (Of course, that's
only my interpretation of Mr. Barry's letter (which I thought was kind of
entertaining in the first place ...).)

John