Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ncsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!mcnc!ncsu!hes From: hes@ncsu.UUCP Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: Copyright-`Fair Use' Clause Message-ID: <2979@ncsu.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 09:05:38 EST Article-I.D.: ncsu.2979 Posted: Fri Jan 24 09:05:38 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jan-86 04:06:22 EST References: <957@ncoast.UUCP> Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh Lines: 19 The Fair Use of written materials usually applies to copying *portions* of copyrighted works. E.g., you want to discuss the sentence structure of several authors, so you copy one paragraph from each of 5 books and hand this page out to your English class. This is legal as fair use. A good rule of thumb is that such copying should not reduce the market for the book (or other copyrighted work.) It is hard to think of fair use examples for computer programs. (Maybe small extracts showing different styles of register usage?) Generally computer programs are copied as a *whole*, and used in exactly such a manner as to decrease the market for that program. A school buying one copy, and then making additional copies for a number of school computer is *cleary* violating the copyright law in exactly this manner. (Making a backup copy for the one computer you have is not doing the same thing.) --henry schaffer #include