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From: inc@fluke.UUCP (Ensign Benson, Space Cadet)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Copyrights, the Net, and You
Message-ID: <617@tpvax.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Jun-85 15:57:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: tpvax.617
Posted: Tue Jun  4 15:57:10 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 01:45:30 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: The Digital Circus, Sector R
Lines: 67

*** BUT HONEST, THIS *IS* MY MESSAGE ***


I think I have a few things to add to this discussion, but first I'd like to
give a bit of background:

Back in 1981, I discovered a humor writer (who shall go nameless) who did a
weekly article called "Foolin' Around" for a tiny local weekly TV guide that
was given away at grocery stores. I collected about 14 of the articles, and
never saw anything more of him.

In 1983, I keyed my 14 articles into my unix account and started posting
them to net.jokes. Brad Needham flamed me visciously, and threatened to
inform the copyright holder (which by the way, he had incorrectly identified
as a Miami newspaper, when in fact it is held by Knight-Ridder).

His flame prompted me to take several steps:

    1) I wrote to the "injured" party asking for permission to reprint.

    2) I consulted our corporate legal counsel and asked if Brad's
       assertions (court can sieze the company's computers, etc) had any
       merit.

Here were the results: the writer sent a very funny letter stating that
while he himself had no objection to such use, the legal question would have
to be answered by his editor, whom he described as slightly less organized
than many Middle-Eastern nations. His editor has never replied.

Corporate legal counsel offered the following: the law has not yet been
estabished on the legality of posting copyrighted material to computer
networks. In order to test the copyright laws in this context would require
a larger expenditure of funds by the copyight holder than they are likely to
recover, and in the process the major point they would have to prove would
be that such posting constituted a sizable financial injury to the
copyright holder.

I informed Brad of all that, and his rebuttal seems to be something based on
a morality that he has invented, and nothing at all to do with real points
of law. For my part, I stopped posting just because I don't want to hear any
more whining from him and his ilk, and because I don't take threats of
lawsuits lightly. Instead, I have maintained a mailing list to distribute
the collection (which has now grown to around 150 articles and continues to
grow), and regularly share them with fans around the world.

Brad says that the mere keying in of copyrighted material viloates the law,
a point I think is extremely tenuous. Regardless of what is ever actually
decided by the courts, it is clear that at this time, there has been no test
of the applicablility of copyright laws to posting to USENET, and if you
want to argue that point, please do so by mailing to:

	 /dev/null


Gary Benson


(C) Copright 1985, Gary Benson. Permission to copy, reprint, or store in any
medium whatsoever is granted to any person except those whose name is Brad
Needham. The term "any medium" in this context shall be taken to include the
media of pixels on a terminal screen and human memory.

-- 
			       Ensign Benson
			       -Space Cadet-
 
    _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-The Digital Circus, Sector R-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_