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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!styx!mcb
From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: Downloading from Usenet vs. downloading from CompuServe
Message-ID: <21445@styx.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-May-87 14:23:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.21445
Posted: Thu May 14 14:23:03 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 11:03:43 EDT
References: <213200002@mirror> <255@atlas.UUCP> <116@l5comp.UUCP> <3043@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 40
Keywords: copyrights, compilations, public domain software

In article <3043@well.UUCP> mjr@well.UUCP (Matthew Rapaport) writes:
> They [CompuServe] do not object to personal use or even casual
> re-distribution, but they do try to put their foot down when individuals
> attempt massive electronic redistribution -- set up their own BBS
> and just re-broadcast things obtained from CIS.  As far as I'm
> concerned, this policy is justified since CIS invests much time
> and effort into making reliable storage and distribution facilities
> available.
> 
> Usenet may not have an official policy on such matters, but I get the
> impression that here too, if an individual were to download large
> amounts of code from the net and then RESELL it (as distinct from
> giving it away), some people here would be rightlypissed!

Depends what you mean by "rightly". If a program is in the public
domain, it is resellable, subject only to the possible copyright held
by someone who makes the compilation of such software available.
However, compilation copyrights are relatively weak; they do not 
cover the substance of the compiled work but instead the uniqueness
of the compilation (e.g., someone has gone to the trouble of
collecting all known PD software written in SIMSCRIPT) or the format
of the compilation (e.g., it has been compressed and put on a Cauzin
SoftStrip). 

But more importantly, public domain Usenet source distributions are 
not covered by a compilation copyright, and probably could not be, 
(since they are not really compiled) with the exception of the 
comp.sources.unix (formerly mod.sources) distributions and archives.
And the moderator of comp.sources.unix has chosen not to do so; thus the 
distributions and archives can be freely resold for whatever the
market will bear; they just cannot be claimed as proprietary.

Whether it is "right" or "wrong" is a moral question. It is certainly
lawful. In the case of CompuServe, the question is a legal one, since
they assert a compilation copyright as to the PD software available
throught their service. What exactly might constitute an infringement
of that compilation copyright is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Michael C. Berch / mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: {ames,ihnp4,lll-crg,lll-lcc,mordor}!lll-tis!mcb (15 May and thereafter)