From: Nick Makris (nick@mcn.org)
Date: 09/21/03-01:41:57 PM Z
Katharine, Are you suggesting that the posts you speak of below are
protected by copyright laws??
n
----- Original Message -----
From: "Katharine Thayer" <kthayer@pacifier.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 5:11 AM
Subject: Copyright
> 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
>
>
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