From: Gordon J. Holtslander (holtsg@duke.usask.ca)
Date: 09/21/03-08:54:00 PM Z
Hi:
Its my opinion that every individual retains copyright of anything they
have posted to this mailing list. The fact that it is archived and more
or less freely distributed to everyone who is subscribed to the list does
not nullify copyright.
The method of distribution and the archiving of messages are understood
and implicitly accepted by participating in this list.
I'm not a lawyer but I believe any use of an individuals postings outside
of this context would be a violation of copyright.
Gord
List Manager
On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Katharine Thayer wrote:
> 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
>
---------------------------------------------------------
Gordon J. Holtslander Dept. of Biology
holtsg@duke.usask.ca 112 Science Place
http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg University of Saskatchewan
Tel (306) 966-4433 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Fax (306) 966-4461 Canada S7N 5E2
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 10/01/03-03:09:00 PM Z CST