>
> At 4:46 PM -0800 1/2/97, Stan Ryckman wrote:
>
> >You are assuming that DejaNews isn't violating copyright -- something
> >that I don't assume. Sooner or later, someone will probably sue them.
I think Stan's correct.
> I wonder. They're only taking information avaialble on a public news
> feed and distributing it to users. Their only difference is they're not
> distributing it via NNTP, but repackaging it with different front end.
> I don't see that their decision to make it available via HTTP using a
> huge mother search engine instead of using INN and NNTP protocols does
> a thing about copyright.
>
> Why is what they're doing different than what UUNET does? As far as I
> can tell, it's only protocols and presentation. Both are publically
> distributing public information. How is one therefore a copyright
> violation?
Exactly. When you submit your newsgroup posting or email message to a list,
you, the author, are publishing the work via a pre-defined distribution
mechanism. All propagations via that distribution stream are part of the
initial "run" of copies of the message, which were triggered by the copyright
owner. No one else has the right to make re-prints, in any form.
> Brings up an interesting question -- is Alta Vista in violation of
> people's copyrights? They suck down web pages, index them, and
> distribute the consolidated data. So are all the other crawlers. If
> Alta Vista is legally clean, why wouldn't findmail.com be? They seem to
> be doing effectively the same thing, only against e-mail. Why is it
> okay to do it to web, and not e-mail?
>
> Is it because we don't like the concept? Or because we already know the
> value of Alta vista and not these guys, so they don't count? Or is
> there soem essential difference that makes it okay one way but not the
> other?
There is an essential difference. Alta Vista is not re-publishing. They
aren't making a copy available to others. They had the right to
one copy, which they look at, slice, dice and shred, and their output
is something they have done to analyse its properties. They are NOT
making copies of the works for other people. Deja News is. They are
offering someone else's works at a time and in a method that the original
author did not intend by making the original posting.
> Generally, I don't think it matters. The user retains copyright on the
> individual message, and the list owner maintains copyright on the
> compilation of messages that is "the mailing list". Compuserve, et al,
> have shown and used compilation copyrights for a long time. It's pretty
> clear from a legal standpoint...
I hope so. :)
Bonnie Scott
Prodigy, Inc.
> Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@solutions.apple.com) Software Gnome
> Apple Server Marketing Webmaster <http://www.solutions.apple.com/>
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