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From: mcb@eris.berkeley.edu (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Cincinnatus Society of Pinheads (copyright law)
Message-ID: <15993@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 25 Oct 88 19:43:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.15993
References: <15638@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <7068@dasys1.UUCP> <391@flatline.UUCP> <15798@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <15800@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <31186@
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mcb@eris.berkeley.edu (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 32

In article <31186@bbn.COM> levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) writes:
> In article <15800@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu writes:
> > So what happens if I were to repost my article with a Supersedes: header
> > and a copyright notice?  The theory is that this hunts out for all exist-
> > ing copies on USENET and replaces them.  Not that I think any are left.
> 
> Mr. Berch's article stated that notification to holders of copies was
> insufficient, that notice had to be imprinted on each copy.  I think
> 'supersedes' falls more under the former category, especially as it
> would have no effect on legally printed copies of the article, or
> archived or backup copies.  Sorry.

Not so fast, there, gentlemen.  I think a good argument could be made
for both sides of the issue here.  The "Supersedes:" control message
is the nearest thing to hunting down and affixing notice, and it might
jst do the trick.  On the other hand, it might not.  No one can speak
authoritatively about this; it is an open question of law.  A judge
might look at the "Supersedes:" mechanism and say "Gee, looks good to
me -- it's the appropriate method of adding notice to a machine-readable 
copy of somthing in a text database", or might say, "No -- the code
section means what it says, and a program or person would have to
actually modify each instantiation of the article in each text
database."  Who knows?

The points Mr. Levin raises (withe respect to legally-made copies prior to
the notice being "added" (if "superseded" is "added"), though, I think
can be answered by reference to the remainder of Section 405 of the
Code (effect of omission of notice on subsequent infringement), and is 
discussed very nicely in Jordan Breslow's article.

Michael C. Berch
mcb@eris.berkeley.edu / mcb@tis.llnl.gov / ucbvax!eris!mcb