Re: favor

From: Anthony Atkielski (atkielski.anthony_at_wanadoo.fr)
Date: 02/05/05

  • Next message: Chris Knipe: "VRRP" 
    Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 11:43:32 +0100
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

    Mike Hauber writes:

    MH> If I were to send you an email and a header (or signature) stated
    MH> that you were not privy to the contents of the email, then you
    MH> could be in serious trouble.

    No, because you explicitly sent me the e-mail. If the confidential
    contents were not your own, however, you could be in trouble for
    revealing them to me.

    MH> By sending the email to you, I am implying that you are allowed to
    MH> view it.

    Yes.

    MH> On a public forum (such as this) where there is growth, it is
    MH> logically implied (if I have any sense) that if I were to post to
    MH> this forum, it would not only be available on the mirrored lists,
    MH> but on the future mirroring lists as well.

    No, that is not implied. What is implied is that it will be available
    on this forum, period. Since mirroring and archiving and other forms of
    additional publication are optional, posting to this forum alone does
    not grant any implicit license to mirror or archive the post. The only
    way to get around this is to require that people agree to these other
    forms of publication before allowing them to post to this forum.

    MH> I would be foolish to assume otherwise.

    No, that's not the way it works. With copyright, you have to grant each
    right explicitly. There are only a handful of exceptions, and the ones
    you describe are not among them.

    There is a widespread and serious misconception that anything put on the
    Net in any form somehow falls magically into the public domain, and/or
    that any publication on the Net in any one form automatically implies a
    license to publish on the Net in any other form. But that's not how
    copyright works, and the current trend is towards _more restrictive_
    copyright law, not greater liberalization of implicit licensing.

    MH> Why is that? Google isn't reposting the information.

    Yes, but if Google points to an _illegal_ copy of copyrighted material,
    they risk liability if they refuse to remove the link, at least in
    certain cases. It has not been extensively tested, but linking to
    illegal copies can be assimilated with direct infringement in some
    jurisdictions, i.e., it can be looked upon as piracy.

    Just linking to legal copies of material should be fine.

    Whether or not Googles caching of pages constitutes an infringement or
    not is still not certain, as it has not been extensively tested.

    Unfortunately, along with all the legitimate uses of copyright, there
    are some people and organizations trying to use copyright for things
    like censorship, and this muddies the water considerably. There's even
    at least one organization that has perverted the spirit of copyright
    into a spam-filtering device.

    I don't personally believe that linking to infringing material is itself
    an infringement, but it seems that increasingly jurisprudence does not
    agree with me.

    MH> I could understand if Microsoft had a server out there somewhere
    MH> that had the source code for XP, that they wouldn't want Google
    MH> pointing the way...

    Actually, since the copy of the source code would be legal, they
    probably couldn't stop Google from pointing to it. They should be able
    to stop Google from caching it.

    MH> But that's different in that it was never released to a public forum
    MH> in the first place (explicitly or otherwise).

    I'm not sure what you mean by "public forum." A server accessible from
    the Internet without any special authorization mechanism is about as
    public as anything can get, particularly if there is something else
    linking to it that allows spiders to find it.

    There is a distinction, however, when someone must take a positive,
    explicit step to join a forum, such as selecting a userid and password,
    or submitting a subscription request to a mailing list, and so on. In
    that case, the forum is no longer public, and the person
    joining it may reasonably suppose that its contents will not be
    public either.

    If a band sets up shop on a street and starts to play music, they may
    reasonably suppose that anyone might record the music, and there isn't
    anything they can do about that. However, if they give a concert in a
    venue to which access is controlled in some way (such as through the
    sale of tickets), they can reasonably suppose that their performance
    cannot be recorded.

    MH> Or is what you're referring to specific to Google's caching
    MH> system?

    Personally I consider the caching to be an infringement, albeit usually
    not a grave one. Just linking to pages does not appear to be any kind
    of infringement to me, particularly since Google respects site
    instructions not to index certain pages or sites (robot exclusion
    rules).

    MH> In that case, this email is absolutely copyrighted by me (along
    MH> with my email address, my middle initial, Mother's maiden name,
    MH> SSN, and my recipie for coffee) ...

    It was protected by copyright as soon as you wrote it.

    An important question is whether or backquoting of e-mail to a public
    list is an infringement. I'd say no, provided that backquoting is
    interspersed with new content and serves only as the basis for
    commentary (as it does here). Copying the entire message wholesale into
    another venue is infringement, though, unless the author has explicitly
    authorized this.

    And, just to complicate things, some jurisdictions require a time limit
    on licensing--which makes perpetual archiving an infringement, even if
    the author agrees to it. After a certain number of years, the rights
    revert back to the author and the content must be removed or relicensed.

    MH> And just the same, I don't think I'll jump on any bandwagons and sue
    MH> Google for their great service, even if they do cash this page from
    MH> a future freebsd-questions archive mirror. :)

    Be careful what you say, as it may affect the results of any future
    litigation in which you become involved (voluntarily or involuntarily). 

    -- 
Anthony
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
  • Next message: Chris Knipe: "VRRP"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Mailinglist privacy: MY NAME ALL OVER GOOGLE!
      ... Anthony Atkielski wrote: ... * Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, ... * If made before or within 5 years of publication, ... attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: JSH: Would a major result get picked up?
      ... after publication. ... Has to be Google search on: ... upheavals could lurk for some time before a revolution in thinking, ...
      (sci.physics)
    • Re: favor
      ... It's a network that people explicitly opt into. ... publication on the Web, ... SR> infringement. ... Why would they put these copies into a shared directory other than to ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: favor
      ... TM> forum permission to publish your copyrighted material. ... TM> Since at the time of publication of that post, ... you also by implication gave your ...
      (freebsd-questions)
    • Re: JSH: Would a major result get picked up?
      ... The "published author" sticker loses its' shine when your only publication ... Has to be Google search on: ... This saga instead of playing out over decades is playing out over ... and is becoming visible because of the LATEST technology of the ...
      (sci.physics)