From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 09/21/03-06:11:20 AM Z
While I'm here, I've been thinking it's time for another reminder about
copyright laws, after a private correspondent suggested that because the
information from this forum is archived in such a way that it can be
accessed by the general public, that makes it fair game to be used by
anyone for any purpose; for example a list member could collect and
publish information from this list without permission of the authors,
perhaps even without attribution.
(Have you noticed, BTW, that it is invariably people who have never had
an original thought or created an original thing who think copyright
laws are optional?)
A member of my family is an attorney who serves on the American Bar
Association committee dealing with legal issues around the internet. She
says people like to use two different excuses to violate copyright laws
on the internet. The first excuse is, "everyone does it." Her answer to
that is that if she's driving 75 miles an hour in a 55 mile zone, and
everyone around her is also driving 75 miles an hour, that doesn't
change the fact that she's breaking the law. The second excuse is that
the internet has rendered copyright laws null and void. Her answer to
that is that the copyright law has not changed. The fact that things are
easy to rip off on the internet doesn't make it okay.
It's kind of like those public service commercials that said "Don't help
a good boy go bad" (by leaving your keys in the car). By that logic,
it's incumbent on the person who has knowledge not to share it, because
once shared, it's fair game to be ripped off. If people with information
stop sharing that information, that will be the end of the internet and
of this forum. I personally think that would be a terrible shame. So,
I'm just saying, think about it.
Katharine Thayer
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 10/01/03-03:09:00 PM Z CST