consensus on linking RAMFM to website forums.

Joe...

Your thinking is outdated by oh... 15 years.

While it sounds about right that to post to a public place must mean "public domain", it most certaintly does not. If you can cite a LAW that says so, I'd be happy to entertain your position. (be aware, I've done this many times and nobody ever has, you'd be the first, almost a hero!! ) :)

I'll offer the info below for you (and anyone else) to consider. If you need more, I can fill that need. I've been concerned with copyright issues since

1990. In that time, I have refused to believe the average layman's interpretation of the logistics of copyright. Most is ill- or mis- or non-informed opinion. While you may have been correct a decade and half ago, you need to read up. You are spreading misinformation... unfortunately, people just will believe you. I suggest everyone do their own homework. If you have anything to debunk what I have to offer, please feel free to show me reference to the material, as I am very interested in solid info. Unfortunately, I have to disregard your reply here as unsubstantiated.

(from various sources including ISP disclaimers, misc.legal.comp, lawyers websites and other trustyworthy sources)

====================== Copyright Confusion

If a work doesn't include author information and/or has no copyright notice, are you free to use it?

No! Ever since the United States adopted the Berne Copyright Convention in

1988, a work doesn't need a copyright notice, and has copyright protection as soon as it is "fixed in a tangible medium of expression," a computer's memory, for example. Once "fixed," the work is copyrighted, even if the creator neither registers the copyright nor appends a copyright notice.

What can be copyrighted? The contents of a Web site are copyrighted, as is any written work (including e-mail and Usenet posts), visual work, music, other sound files, movies and other creations. Assume you may need permission from the copyright holder to use or share any creative work. ====================== The US Law, and the Berne Convention definitions, are quite clear that a copyright exists from the moment of fixing the expression in a "tangible" medium. There is no getting around this. The copyright is created along with the expression. ======================

1) Current copyright law derived from the Berne convention (ie copyright law in most of Europe, the U.S, Canada, etc) assigns copyright of a piece to the creator, without further action on the part of the author. That is, you get it without asking for it. 2) The holder of a copyright must specifically disclaim that copyright (for example, with a statement to the effect "this document is now in the public domain". Unless this is done, copyright does not lapse. 3) Even if copyright is lost on one piece, it remains on all other pieces by the same author, and will remain on all future works by that author, unless and until it is disclaimed in turn. 4) In addition to controlling the "right to copy", the owner of a copyright also controls the right to prepare derived works or express a work in "another medium" (and this does not mean mag tape instead of hard disk, it means video instead of written word, etc). ====================== I'm a lawyer. Your comment about the "public domain" status of netnews postings is incorrect. Netnews postings are copyrighted under the Berne Convention.

Mike Godwin ( snipped-for-privacy@eff.org) ====================== In the US, once you write something, you own it and you own the right to limit all derivative works. Thus, it is a somewhat safe assumption that by posting something on USENET, you are giving an implied license for anyone on USENET (including the machines that hang all this together) to reproduce your work on USENET. However, I don't believe that there is any implied license beyond that.

Although it has not been tested in the courts (I believe), posting something on USENET is somewhat like broadcasting it on the airwaves. You give people an implied license to use the work for the generally accepted use, and that's all.

Paul E. Hoffman ( snipped-for-privacy@netcom.com) ======================

Research,

- USCODE TITLE 17 - COPYRIGHTS CHAPTER 5 Sec. 501. articles 106 through 121 Infringement of copyright

- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 - COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS ACT, 2000 - Berne Copyright Convention - 1988 - TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > Sec. 507. Limitations on actions Civil Actions.

Mountain out of a molehill.

----------------- Jim '88 LX 5.0 (now in car heaven) '89 LX 5.0 vert '99 GT 35th Anniversery Edition - Silver Mods to date - Relocated trunk release to drivers side, shortened throttle cable.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.commune (Nospam9212) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m13.aol.com:

Francis, why do you keep quoting US Law, as if it has some authority here? This would be fine and dandy if Usenet was in the USA but it *isn't*. It isn't ANYWHERE. It's merely a distribution system. There is no law that applies to it, because there is no 'it'. I talked further about the fact that Newsgroups weren't in any fixed place, in my reply to your other post.

Here is an excerpt from

__________________

WHAT USENET IS NOT

------------------

1. Usenet is not an organization.

No person or group has authority over Usenet as a whole. No one controls who gets a news feed, which articles are propagated where, who can post articles, or anything else. There is no "Usenet Incorporated," nor is there a "Usenet User's Group." You're on your own.

Granted, there are various activities organized by means of Usenet newsgroups. The newsgroup creation process is one such activity. But it would be a mistake to equate Usenet with the organized activities it makes possible. If they were to stop tomorrow, Usenet would go on without them.

1. Usenet is not a democracy.

Since there is no person or group in charge of Usenet as a whole

-- i.e. there is no Usenet "government" -- it follows that Usenet cannot be a democracy, autocracy, or any other kind of "acy."(But see "The Camel's Nose?" below.)

1. Usenet is not fair.

After all, who shall decide what's fair? For that matter, if someone is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him? Neither you nor I, that's certain.

1. Usenet is not a right.

Some people misunderstand their local right of "freedom of speech" to mean that they have a legal right to use others' computers to say what they wish in whatever way they wish, and the owners of said computers have no right to stop them.

Those people are wrong. Freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak. If I choose not to use my computer to aid your speech, that is my right. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.

1. Usenet is not a public utility.

Some Usenet sites are publicly funded or subsidized. Most of them, by plain count, are not. There is no government monopoly on Usenet, and little or no government control.

1. Usenet is not an academic network.

It is no surprise that many Usenet sites are universities, research labs or other academic institutions. Usenet originated with a link between two universities, and the exchange of ideas and information is what such institutions are all about. But the passage of years has changed Usenet's character. Today, by plain count, most Usenet sites are commercial entities.

1. Usenet is not an advertising medium.

Because of Usenet's roots in academia, and because Usenet depends so heavily on cooperation (sometimes among competitors), custom dictates that advertising be kept to a minimum. It is tolerated if it is infrequent, informative, and low-hype.

The "comp.newprod" newsgroup is NOT an exception to this rule: product announcements are screened by a moderator in an attempt to keep the hype-to-information ratio in check.

If you must engage in flackery for your company, use the "biz" hierarchy, which is explicitly "advertising-allowed", and which (like all of Usenet) is carried only by those sites that want it.

1. Usenet is not the Internet.

The Internet is a wide-ranging network, parts of which are subsidized by various governments. It carries many kinds of traffic, of which Usenet is only one. And the Internet is only one of the various networks carrying Usenet traffic.

1. Usenet is not a UUCP network.

UUCP is a protocol (actually a "protocol suite," but that's a technical quibble) for sending data over point-to-point connections, typically using dialup modems. Sites use UUCP to carry many kinds of traffic, of which Usenet is only one. And UUCP is only one of the various transports carrying Usenet traffic.

1. Usenet is not a United States network.

It is true that Usenet originated in the United States, and the fastest growth in Usenet sites has been there. Nowadays, however, Usenet extends worldwide.

The heaviest concentrations of Usenet sites outside the U.S. seem to be in Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan.

Keep Usenet's worldwide nature in mind when you post articles. Even those who can read your language may have a culture wildly different from yours. When your words are read, they might not mean what you think they mean.

1. Usenet is not a UNIX network.

Don't assume that everyone is using "rn" on a UNIX machine. Among the systems used to read and post to Usenet are Vaxen running VMS,IBM mainframes, Amigas, Macintoshes and MS-DOS PCs.

1. Usenet is not an ASCII network.

The A in ASCII stands for "American". Sites in other countries often use character sets better suited to their language(s) of choice; such are typically, though not always, supersets of ASCII.Even in the United States, ASCII is not universally used: IBM mainframes use (shudder) EBCDIC. Ignore non-ASCII sites if you like, but they exist.

1. Usenet is not software.

There are dozens of software packages used at various sites to transport and read Usenet articles. So no one program or package can be called "the Usenet software."

Software designed to support Usenet traffic can be (and is) used for other kinds of communication, usually without risk of mixing the two. Such private communication networks are typically kept distinct from Usenet by the invention of newsgroup names different from the universally-recognized ones. _______________

Now do you see? The best US law could do would be to strangle those servers in the US from *carrying* Usenet traffic, but they couldn't stop it getting through on servers outside of America. Or servers (computers) in peoples homes linking to other servers in other countries outside the US.

They can't control this thing because it's not a 'thing'that can be pinned down.

Nobody actually really seems to know what Usenet is anymore it's like a monster out of control, and no government on earth can control it. Not even the USA.

Mack

snipped-for-privacy@aol.commune (Nospam9212) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m13.aol.com:

What's public domain got to do with anything? I certainly didn't mention it.

I just read up on it

and I'm partially wrong - according to the Library of Congress, a "work" (we'll get into 'what is a work' later) is under copyright protection as soon as "it is created and fixed in a tangible form that is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."See # 4. However, also according to the Library of Congress, you need to register your copyright if you want to "bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work." If you don't register, you're basically SOL.

Of course, as Mack pointed out in his subsequent post, this has nothing to do with non-U.S. things.

Again, I never said anything about "public domain". You've got me confused with someone else.

This is one guy's opinion. I prefer facts.

You just spelled it out above in sec. 107: "...for purposes such as criticism, comment..."

USENET posts certainly aren't "works" as per the Library of Congress:

And again, _none_ of this applies to non-U.S. things.

Joe Calypso Green '93 5.0 LX AOD hatch with a few goodies Black '03 Dakota 5.9 R/T CC

Probably a pre-emptive conditioned response on my part. I've heard most of this many times before. The general thinking is opposite of "copyright protected" is "public domain". Is there a third choice among the average debator?

I did see here somebody mentioning PD, I did not check to see if it was you or not... my mistake. Thanks for correcting you did not mention PD.

Thank you. At least *that* is out of the way.

Nope. Certain issues with monetary recoveries for damages may be rendered weak and/or powerless. The actual copyright owner never loses right to the

*protection* of copyright. You may still have rights to "injucntive" restraint. Not being able to bring a lawsuit for monetary damages, does not mean you can't have the material removed from control of another person or entity.

Of course, using Mack as a back-up could be a big mistake. Are you assured Mack is very clueful? Or you just satisfied that he agrees with you so he must be right? When addressing you, I'd pefer to debate your ideas. I'll leave debating Mack's ideas with Mack.. Ok?

You may consider some of the info I provided opinion.... you may be correct. The info, although, was from TOS agreements, posts on misc.legal.comp, and various websites of attorneys and legal staff. While a lawyer may not always have the definitive and correct answers (after all, in a court case there's at least one lawyer that's gonna be wrong!!), I was hoping to make a point. That point was that *most* attorneys, legal personell, publishers, and others with a vested interest and experience in copyright infringement, have stated assuredly that USENET post are copyrighted.

If you deny those sources as simple "opinion", where does that leave us? I'd hoped that you would at least use that as a catalyst to do some research into what attorneys think about posts on USENET. Would it be fair to say that if the

*bulk* of lawyer and publishers that have a vested interest in copyright law agree, USENET posts enjoy copyright protection, would that at least satisfy to some degree that there could be some substance to that claim? Or would it in fact just show that most of these sources are clueless about copyright and the

minority claiming posts are not copyrighted, is correct?

I don't put all my eggs in one basket and claim all lawyers are always correct... but way to many *claim* USENET posts enjoy copyright. Their claims outweigh mine and certainly yours.

If a post in USENET is not copyrighted and is not "publc domain", what kind of "legal limbo" do you think it exists in?

Nope. Everywhere in the world that is signatory to the Berne Convention on Copyright, "once you write something, you own it and you own the right to limit all derivative works. "

We have treaties with other countries concerning copyright laws, dated as far back as...

July 24, 1971, amended on September 28, 1979 September 9, 1886, May 4, 1896, November 13, 1908, March 20, 1914, June 2, 1928, June 26, 1948, July 14, 1967, July 24, 1971, September 28, 1979

====================== The two major treaties governing copyright are the Berne Convention (U.S. Senate Treaty Doc. 99-27, KAV 2245, 1 B.D.I.E.L. 715; also reprinted at

17 U.S.C.A. 104). and the Universal Copyright Convention (U.C.C.), (25 U.S.T. 1341, T.I.A.S. 7868, 1 B.D.I.E.L. 813 (1971 Paris text); and 6 U.S.T. 2731, T.I.A.S. 3324, 216 U.N.T.S. 132 (1952 Geneva text)). (Note: the abbreviation U.C.C. to denote the Universal Copyright Convention should not be confused with the same abbreviation to denote the Uniform Commercial Code.)

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was established in 1886 in Berne, Switzerland.

The Berne Convention has four main points: National treatment, preclusion of formalities, minimum terms of protection, and minimum exclusive rights.

National treatment: Under Berne, an author's rights are respected in another country as though the author were a national (citizen) of that country (Art. 5(1)). For example, works by U.S. authors are protected by French copyright in France, and vice versa, because both the U.S. and France are signatories to Berne.

Preclusion of formalities: Under Berne, copyright cannot be dependent on formalities such as registration or copyright notice (Art. 5(2)). However, as noted in sections 2.5 and 2.7, this provision apparently does not prevent a member nation from taking adherence to formalities into account when determining what remedies apply. ======================

The line in there...

"cannot be dependent on formalities such as registration or copyright notice"

...gives international copyrights the freedom of copyright WITHOUT having to affix a copyright notice.

BUT...

The fact that you may not have a copyright notice...

"does not prevent a member nation from taking adherence to formalities into account when determining what remedies apply."

In other words you will lose some ground in damage recovery, but not lose ground on the legitimacy of the copyright, itself.

(above taken from International Treaty and not local US law)

as a note:

In certain of these areas, U.S. copyright law does not quite align with Berne. For example, Berne requires that the paternity and integrity rights endure for the same term as the other rights (Art. 6bis(2)), while in the U.S., those rights terminate at the death of the author (17 U.S.C. 106A(e)). The two have been reconciled by the premise that other sources of federal law, such as trademark, combined with the trademark, unfair competition, and defamation laws of the individual states, satisfy these requirements.

The above claims were made by true bona fide lawyers. I have more. I'd rather you look for them yourself. No, I'd rather you look for an overwhelming amount of sources that claim USENET is *not* copyrighted. I don't want all the claims by all the uninformed netkooks, those outnumber reputable (whatever that is) sources.

Exactly. For "fair use", you are allowed to make a new work that uses bits and pieces of a copyrighted material for criticism, comment, etc...

Provision 3 in fair use states...

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

Notice... the word "portion". You can not reproduce the copyrighted material in whole, you may use it as a "portion". You can not reproduce the copyrighted material in whole and leave out a review or critism. You can not reproduce a material in whole without adding a review or critism with expectation that somebody MAY come along and do so, later. "Fair use" rarely/never eliviates infringement on a whole work, only on "portitons" of a work.

To claim "fair use", you are expected to make a new work and use bits and pieces of the copyrighted material to stress a point, backup your position, show fault or failure, teach or educate, etc.

Fair Use

"I back up my conclusion on quantum physics with a piece in the book by Stepen Hawkings, in Chapter 9, page 3, 12th paragraph, he stated ..... "

Not fair use.

"In my book -Poetry in the 19th Century-, I have included an appendix reproducing the complete collections of poet So and So, for review and critism."

Even worse (and laugable)

"I copied all the poems of author So and So, without any work of my own and I am publishing them for review an criticism by those that have no access to those poems and it's ok cuz I am not doing it for profit."

Use this as a rule of thumb, if you are publishing/posting something that includes copyrighted material and you can't claim the bulk of the material is YOUR COPYRIGHTED WORK, then it is not covered against liability under "fair use"... you'd do best to get permission to use.

Really? Let's look.

I understand there may be the occasional post that I understand is NOT copyrighted. They are rare. Obviously. If I came here and posted simply

"A"

I may not be able to claim copyright.

======== WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?

Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration ========

(note: the above is written very ambiguously and shouldn't be consider extremely accurate. It's not taken from law itself and the author is unknown. It appears on a US Government site but that does not distract the fact it's misleading. We have two ways to interpret "as distinguished from". If the author meant "as it can be distinguished *by* a description", s/he should have written that. If the author meant "as seperately distinguishable *from* the description", s/he should have written that. I believe the author meant the latter and my description why should help make that clear.)

Everything in USENET (worth claiming copyright to) is a description, explanation, or illustration.

The part of the line above written before the word "distinguised", keeps us from claiming copyright on various things...

ideas...

no matter how intellectual, silly, frivolous. There are no "thought police".

procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts,

in real-time.

principles,

"A basic truth, law, or assumption" is not the property of anyone.

discoveries

A "discovery" is never yours. It was always there. It belongs to everyone. How that discovery is manipulated, exploited, controlled is a different story. Certainly most science magazines are copyrighted that hold INFORMATION about the discovery. You can't claim infringement on the nature of the discovey. All subsequent work is not consider derivative and is therefore, "fair use".

USENET posts are none of these. They may *contain* ideas, etc but they are not just an idea. They contain tangible expression of an idea.

If I think...

- build rocket fly to the moon

-

That is not copyrightable. Why? 'Cuz you may have the same idea.

If I write...

"I had a dream. In that dream I flew to the moon in a rocket which I built myself".

That can most certainly *be* copyrighted.. it may be the first few lines from a story I wrote and had published. You may use the lines, but not the story itself in it's entirety. That would be copyrighted. (here's a good point.. you may inadvertently write those same few lines by chance. My copyright hasn't been infringed. It wouldn't be likely you'd write anything much longer, by chance, like the complete book. Fair use tries to eliviate that problem by restricting the quantity of my material you may use by considering original quantity of copyrighted material vs copied quantity of copyrighted material and the nature of the work/s. Entirety of copyrighted material is rarely upheld as "fair use".)

Anyway, most of these exceptions are outside the bounds set forth by "tangible". Importing and reposting USENET posts is not.

So we are left with...

description, explanation, or illustration

If I describe...

-my car-

I don't own copyright to the car.

-the method I use to paint it-

I don't own the method of painting the car.

-the procedures I used to begin, procede and finish the job-

I don't own the real-time procedures to finish the job

-the outcome-

I can't own the rights to every painted car simply 'cuz I described it in a tangible media. I don't lose copyright protection because everything I describe is not mine.

Any one (all? be careful) of those descriptions MAY be used as "fair use". As a collection in it's entirety, they most certainly would be a "work" and therefore the "work" is "mine".

This is why I do NOT have a problem with anyone copy-and-pasting anything I write. You may snip, cut, crop pieces of what write to illustrate what I do, did, proclaim, for purposes of clarifing, backing up, archiving for later use, helping to educate others, laugh at, use as an example of what "not to do", point out complete failure, or anything else along those lines. You can NOT wholesale import everything in it's entirety and use it as if it were public property, even if I left it in a public place.

I suggest that importing posts does most certainly fail the: "WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?", above, which btw is not law but rather a "generalization". The line is somewhat non-commital by virtue of: "are

*generally* not eligible" for protection.

Think about this...

if an architect draws plans for new house, the house isn't anything more than a concept. Are the plans copyrighted? (Ford and "concept cars"?)

if an animator draws a cartoon character, the character doesn't exists. The character is a concept. Does the animator own copyright to his drawings?

I write a computer program and you write a computer program. Programs exist as a discovery of electricity. They both do the same thing but the coding shares no similarity. Is there a copyright? Who owns it, if so?

Your confusion is in the fact that the passage above seems to support that when I write down HOW I do something which is not copyrightable, that the tangible work is not copyrighted. It most certainly is, however I can't copyright the real-time method. I can't copyright a "real-time" method, procedure etc.

"You can't peel potatos like that, I wrote that in a book so that way to peel potatos is mine. You owe me".

Nope. You can peel potatos like that, you can't copy my book on peeling potatos like that without my permission.

If you pick apples in a certain way and I see you picking that way.. I can't sue you for copyright of a method, claiming I used that method first. I can claim infringement against you if I fix "in a tangible form of expression" the method and you infringe on that "expression", not on the method itself. I can't own copyright on the method.

I hope I am clear on that. I agree with you. This passage says actual real-time ideas, concepts, methods, priciples etc. aren't copyrightable. Writing down descriptions, explanations, or illustrations are, by virtue of being distinguishable by a description, explanation, or illustration. Text that can be read is copyrightable even if it consists of non-copyrightable real-time activities. If this is not true, every self-help publication on the market is in trouble.

I do drywall for a living, I do it the same way many others do. We all use the same methods and procedures. I share the same principles in work ethic with many. If I write those methods, procedures and priciples in a book, you bet your ass, it enjoys copyright. The tangible work copyrighted is how I describe the method. You can *claim* that this passage states "methods" can't be copyrighted. I'd state I ain't claiming copyright of the method, I am claiming copyright the material in tangible format describing the work. I'd be right.

One more example... and I mentioned this already and it's a beauty. 4 minutes+ of silence was recorded by a musician/composer. Later it was done by another. The first claimed copyright infringement. The second claimed the first was nuts, you can't copyright silence. Sounds right. It isn't!! The infringement was upheld and the second was assessed damages. Why? The "silence" is not the material copyrighted... the composition *is*. I can grasp it but it's hard to explain. Once you've made an effort to think, plot and arrange your "work", to do so, is what is protected. The actually impressions on tape, vinyl, paper, monitor, are nothing by themselves. Words are not copyrighted... my arranging them in a way that gives forth an expression is.

The idea over whether USENET is copyrighted or not has not fully played out. As the law stands, the *bulk* of USENET looks quite protected. So much so, that anything worth more than "hi", enjoys protection.

Conclusion...

The above example fails to show how posting to USENET is not copyrightable. If somebody can arrange silence, can I arrange a blank page/book/post and enjoy copyright?

I stop and I ponder...

Why are these guys ignorant of the International Treaties that hold most of the civilised world to the same standard for copyright for the purposes of negating people claiming "haha I can rip you off, I am not in your country"? The treaties are just for this purpose.

Hint...

Those of you not in the US are under the same application of copyright law that I am. It applies. If it's an infringement in your country, it's an infringement period. There is no "void across International lines", unless you are in/from a handful of countries (Taiwan, China, South Africa, may be a few more). Most countries signatory to copyright treaties have "aligned" (their words) their laws to be pretty much in accordance with each other. You are either ill informed and maybe.. guessing? summizing permaturely? unaware of the treaties? etc. Or maybe hoping I'll buy it if you say if often enough? (of course I haven't read copyright laws from all the countries in the world but I have read a few passages that pertain to where the differences are and how it's handled. Let's say.. there isn't enough to go on to claim exemption from liability by being across International lines. International copyright treaties started out back in the 1800s!! In 250 years, they've pretty much got ya covered.)

On another note... coincidence? I'll be considering and test driving at a 1993 LX AOD hatch color red v8, tomorrow. Like I need to add another Mustang to the family!! :)

Later...

-= Francis Yarra =- fyarraATjunoDOTcom

- My drywall website - My C64 website - My personal website

Francis, there's no way I'm going to address all the stuff you've crammed into this post. I simply don't have the time or the interest. Most of the stuff you cite is opinion and hearsay anyway.

My source, the Library of Congress, spells thing out fairly well with the exception of USENET. Sure, there is a lot of latitude in interpretation, but the bottom line is that nowhere does it say that USENET posts are protected under copyright law.

You believe what you want to and I'll do the same. If and when there are conflicts, they'll end up in court if they're serious enough. Then we'll see legal decisions and the reasoning behind them.

BTW, good luck with the LX!

Joe Calypso Green '93 5.0 LX AOD hatch with a few goodies Black '03 Dakota 5.9 R/T CC

snipped-for-privacy@aol.commune (Nospam9212) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m22.aol.com:

You guys like sushi?

-- Mustang

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Posted via HorsePowered.com - The Internets Premiere Ford Mustang Community.