[d@DCC] Unintended consequences of treating the anonymous part of the Internet as other than BY-NC-ND

[Charles MacDonald]

Russell McOrmond wrote:
> Charles MacDonald wrote:

> I am saying that there is an implied license when a file is made
> available by the copyright holder to an anonymous audience member. I am
> further suggesting that the license is similar to the AT-NC-ND license
> from Creative Commons.  This is not at all like the "public domain".
> 

But many authors do want to know about re-publicationand re-distribution.

> 
> Now to ask you for clarification:  You seem to be advocating a system 
> like "private copying" where royalty-free private/personal use of files 
> are understood as pre-authorized on the anonymous network, but any 
> redistribution is not authorized.

I am saying that

1) Mechanical copying by the network required to make it function is 
currently erroniously concidered a "copy" for the purpose of copyright. 
   Allowing for that causes distortion elesewhere.

2) Once I view a documnst on the anonoymous part of the web, if I retain 
a copy of that file should not be a concern of the legal system.  (this 
is a change from the way the law now works)

3) The fact that I would allow 1 and 2 does not mean that every immage 
file on the net should be fair game for random re-issue.

4) Plagerism is a deadly sin in achedemics for reasons that become 
clearer every day.


>   This means to me that you believe that what Google and Archive.org is 
> doing is illegal.  That is of course unless you believe that these 
> organizations should be "special cased" in copyright law, and that while 
> you believe it is OK for archive.org to re-publish a file you are the 
> copyright holder of, it is not OK if someone else does the same thing.

They both are able to hire good lawyers, who have set up a system which 
probaly falls into the "fair use" doctrine.  In both cases they take 
pains to steer users to the original sites.  In both cases they do have 
an Opt-out provision.  You can ask Google to block access to the Cache 
of your site, although they will tell you that this is a one time option.

If another firm were to offer the same service - the law would apply 
similarly to them I would think.


> Are you really advocating a system that is subjective about who is and
> is not allowed to redistribute your documents? Sounds like a lawsuit
> magnet to me --  are you getting kickbacks from the legal profession?  ;-)

As You may recall, I am a product of the BA in law program at Carleton. 
  That program is mostly taught by former Lawyers who are very critical 
of the legal profession.  Actually, I think if the copyright law were to 
follow the above points it would be easier to determine the limits. 
IANAL, nor would I want to be.

BTW, The RCA trademark is currently licensed by it owner (General 
Electric) for consumer electronics to Thompson Multimedia, a joint 
venture between Thomson of France and Microsoft. and for Music to SONY-BMG..

I find this interesting as RCA was perhaps one of the biggest users of 
patents and such to get their way in the world in the 1920's and 30's 
than Microsoft is today.

-- 
Charles MacDonald          Stittsville Ontario
cmacd at TelecomOttawa.net    Just Beyond the Fringe
http://www.TelecomOttawa.net/~cmacd/
No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.