But Walnut Creek sells ACCESS, not information. They make no claims
about what's on the CDROM, other than that it contains the contents of
one or more archives that are freely available on the net. Walnut
Creek and the ISPs both profit by making large collections of bytes
more readily accessible. The only difference is the delivery media.
> The commerical providers are charging for the service of using their
> computers, not the information that is passing through it.
Walnut Creek is charging for the service of putting a bunch of bytes
on CDROM and shipping it to you, not the information contained in
those bytes. In both cases you pony up the money so you can get that
information, but that's not what they are selling.
> IMHO, the bottom line is FAQ authors whose FAQs contain copyright
> marks which state that publishers "must get written permission before
> inclusion" or language to that effect, have every right to expect
> Walnut Creek to follow the law.
IMHO, the bottom line is that Walnut Creek IS following the law. There
are some who aren't media-blind who don't recognize this.
> I think the debate comes down to those who are willing to "look the
> other way" and those who aren't.
No, it's an honest disagreement about what the law is. If PTF were
doing this, I would say they were breaking the law. That's because
PTFs standard practice is to sell information, not just access to a
bunch of bytes. [As has been pointed out, PTF also obeys the law in
all such matters.] Until there is a court case to set a precedent,
that's all it's going to be.
When the court case happens, I personally wouldn't be surprised if the
judge disagrees with us both, and finds that ISP are legally required
to get your permission to copy a FAQ to or from their site so that
UUNet et. al. are breaking the law.
<mike
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