Ownership aof written work and the net

[Justin Wells <rjwells -at- UNDERGRAD -dot- MATH -dot- UWATERLOO -dot- CA>]

I wrote to John Frost and suggested he post something about the
CDROM copyright controversy to techwr-l, but he had some difficulty
getting the listserver to acknowledge his existence, so I'm forwarding
this post for him.

Please address your responses to him, frost -at- netcom -dot- com -dot- 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Frost <frost -at- netcom -dot- com>
Subject: CDROM violating online copyright

You may have heard about this incident. It has been discussed on more
groups then I can follow, and I just recently heard that your forum might
be a good place to ask for suggestions.

The crux of the matter is this, Can a CDROM company just lift any section
of the internet and redistribute it (USENET is the particular section
this time, but next, who knows?), without any regard to copyright messages,
simply because they claim to be just providing access to the information
just like any other USENET/Internet provider?

I say no. That copyright, unlike trademarks, can be licensed in a variety
of ways (book rights, movie rights, etc) and that because you don't
defend your copyright in one area, doesn't mean you give it up in
another. (ie. posting to USENET, doesn't place your FAQ in the public
domain.).

Here is the message I have been sending to other concerned FAQ authors,
if you find it interesting, please feel free to post this whole message
on the techwrt-l elist with a pointer to send suggestions to me (I can't
get your bitnet.listserve, so I will be unable to read the responses.)

---msg---

I have sent a msg to the EFF (Via, Mech -at- eff -dot- org) and was told that my
question(s) had been forwarded to the legal department. I have not
heard anything since. I have also been contacted by a writer for
WiReD, thought I have yet to hear back from him.

Two days after this started these are my primary observations. (there are
a bunch of nagging small points as well.)

1) there is a huge split between people who think information should be
free to distribute, package, manipulate no matter who makes money off of
it, how it is distributed, with whatever other information, etc. and the
people who think that information should be free and therefore want to
limit the amount of money charged for it, where it can be found, the
accuracy of the information, the style, the associates, the general
atmosphere and environment around the information that has been culled
and formed into a coherent document, namely a FAQ. This appears to be a
pretty strong division and will likely result in many strong debates,
because at first the difference appears to just be a failure of the other
party to understand where one is coming from. But when it comes down to
it, this gap is as big as being pro-choice and anti-choice.

2) regarding copyright law. Although I have yet to get a final legal
opinion (which in the end will have to come from the courts, if it goes
that far), it appears that FAQ authors/maintainers/etc do have a de-facto
copyright on their material. Legally, if somone wants to use that
material, they should ask and receive permission first. However, owning a
copyright on a given piece of work does not afford the owner much
protection unless they've registered the copyright with the Library of
Congress. Without that registration one can only ask that the offender
stop their violation of the copyright. If they refuse and you want to
take them to court to make them stop there is no guarantee that you
will receive any damages or even attorney fees even if you win. And
a court battle like this could cos $500,000. (I've heard conflicting
reports on the actual standing of the copyright law the last few days,
so I am taking the conservative position.) This is why having help from
the EFF, or an online publisher, would be wonderful, because what is
at stake here is the future of online authors to protect their
livelyhood.
Bruce Sterling addresses this in his online preface to _The Hacker
Crackdown_ and his Agitprop guidelines. (also see the Copyright FAQ,
which ironically was included in this CDROM.)

3) Usenet Distribution - Unlike trademarks, where every known violation
must be prosecuted or risk losing the trademark, copyright is a flexible
commodity. One can pick and choose their battles or define the copyright
in any way and not lose the right to control who publishes it in the
future. So if a copyright notices reads this may be distributed on USENET
and a limited number of FTP sites, but may not be packaged with other
materail for commercial sale. Then that notice holds.

4) Walnut Creek CDROM, the offending company, is not a big evil super
powered publisher, like Prentice House or Sony. It is an Internet aware
and friendly company, except in this case they goofed. They should have
asked for and received permission for each FAQ that didn't explicitly say
"this may be distributed and/or on CDROMS." This goof shouldn't be a
death penalty for their company. Indeed they have an 800# where if you
call they will remove the FAQ you created. I don't expect them to recall
old editions of this cdrom, but that means only future versions of this
cd will be changed. And still this doesn't prevent any other company from
doing the same thing Walnut Creek has done, and chances are they won't be
so friendly. My Opinion is that we should put a stop to it now.

--end msg---

TO obtain information on this particular cdrom ftp to ftp.cdrom.com and
cd to pub/cdrom/cdroms/inet. THe important files to browse are readme.txt
and index.txt. And an important note is that more then just FAQs are on
this cdrom, so it is not just a copy of news.answers.

I really appreciate any help you might be able to offer. This incident
has me wondering what to do next.

John Frost
frost -at- netcom -dot- com
Maintainer of the Cyberpoet's Guide to Virtual Culture