Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet
Keywords: The wholesale capturing of Usenet by GEnie
Message-ID: <66654@looking.on.ca>
Date: 24 Dec 89 07:42:37 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <443@deadpup.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 24
Class: discussion

It is my opinion that only human beings can violate a copyright.
Computers can't.

So if a link is created (by humans) but afterwards maintained by
machine, then if that link violates a copyright, the violation is
by the human who commanded the transfer.

If copyrighted information is already flowing, and I tap into it without
permission, then I, in creating the link, am guilty.

If a link exists, and people start feeding copyrighted information down
that link, even though this would be a violation of the copyright, then
the people doing the feeding are guilty.


What this means to my mind is -- any copyright that forbids material from
going down a link to a system you don't like *is* valid if you declare it
before the link is in place.  But it is not valid if you declare it after
the link is in place, and you yourself use that link.

What the courts will actually decide someday I can't predict.  But the
above seems just.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473