For some reason, when I replied to mandrake's post, it was sent only to
him instead of to the list, so I am reposting my reply and his:
> - copyright always resides with the author AFAIK, once something is
> freely posted on the internet there is an implied license to republish
> elsewhere on the internet - some forums make blood curdling claims to
> exclusivity but I don't think it has ever been enforced in law and is
> really just hot air designed to restrict reasonable free discussion.
Mogg mentioned "implied license" as constituting permisson to forward or
repost a post to a list.
Mogg, maybe you are thinking of the implied license that occurs when
someone downloads a page into their browser to read it rather than
reproducing copyrighted material found on the web for one's own
purposes. An implied license of www material allows someone to download
the material onto their computer for their own one-time use, because
that is what a browser does. It doesn't mean that the material can be
reproduced
anywhere anytime just because it was found lying around on the web.
The very idea of implied license arises from work done for hire. Courts
have held that there has to be an agreement between the contractor and
the user such that the user hired the contractor to produce the work,
the contractor agreed and produced the work and handed it over to the
user for use, and both parties intended for the user to have copyright
on the material. This is a far cry from reproducing someone's writing
that you came across on the internet.
With private emails, there is never any implied license to use the
material beyond simply downloading an email someone has sent to your own
mail server. Any other reproduction of the email requires permission of
the copyright holder, i.e., the writer. You can't even forward the email
to someone else without the permission of the writer.
With emails to a list, there is some discussion that forwarding or
archiving of emails not be seen as a violation. Some lists that I have
heard of have dealt with this in advance by stating that all emails are
copyright the list. Otherwise, it's debatable. Public forums I
participate in that focus on intellectual property rights do not allow
the reproduction of even any part of an email or the forwarding of any
posts, just to be on the safe side. To my mind, unless the email writer
says in the email that it is okay to reproduce it, don't do it. That
said, there is nothing to stop anyone from paraphrasing material, just
like we all learned in school. I would think that would be a sufficient
remedy for anyone who simply wants to further the spread of information.
I don't see why info has to be spread verbatim and thus raise copyright
issues. I don't think this impinges on free discussion.
Here are some sites that discuss implied license:
http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/license.html#implied
http://www.ipfrontline.com/depts/article.asp?id=9463&deptid=3
Harry Roth
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