So, somebody swipes a copy (after all, it IS machine readable) and uses
it without attribution or, worse, edits it to change the meaning and
then uses it with attribution. That's plain old plagiarism in the
first case, and not "fair use" in the second. However, the idea of
pursuing this with the idea of getting some redress from the courts has
to begin with the notion that the author(s) have been somehow damaged,
either in reputation or financially (or both) by the actions of the
goniff who swiped the stuff. The fact that it was prepared and
distributed with expectation of remuneration pretty well takes care of
most of the idea of "financial." And if some republisher is printing
it in a book or on a CD-rom and makes a few thousand dollars from
swiping a few hundred FAQ's without permission, what are we "out?"
Maybe ten dollars, tops. And even in the case where someone attributes
the material and edits it to an entirely different sense, the original
material is readily available, and there is that old Boss Tweed aspect
of "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name
right." After all, Camille Paglia would be an obscure scholar if
mentioning her name didn't inspire a legion of feminists to start
baying at the moon, and the fact that she gets this response is what's
behind her fame and fortune.
No, I don't "grant permission" to people asking to reprint our FAQ for
profit because about half the material in it isn't mine, and
technically, I can't release it or define the terms and conditions for
reprinting it. But beyond that, it's more a matter of courtesy---if I
started putting my imprimatur on having the material reprinted "for
profit" the majority of the contributors would ask me to remove their
material and quit contributing, and I'd be stuck having to conjure up
10,000 words in a hurry on topics I'm not particularly familiar with.
This isn't a matter of "damages" or becoming a bunch of sue-happy
Americans by seeking redress in some court of law the moment we don't
like something; it's a simple case of common courtesy----how people get
along with one another in a cooperative venture.
But showing that we are actually being "damaged" by purloiners of our
material would, I think, be pretty difficult to do.
-- *********************************************************** Hank van Cleef vancleef@bga.com vancleef@tmn.com ***********************************************************
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