>
> So, based on my limited experience, I would say it's appropriate, and
> perhaps even enforceable, for Karen to assert her rights in this way.
> The courts tend to favor the author's rights and take a hard, close look
> at any claims of fair usage. And people in general (for now) seem to
> respect notices of copyright. But if she puts in the notice, and the
> commercial site uses extensive portions of her FAQ without her
> permission, then she may have an enforceable violation.
I had a similar conversation with someone when I started a FAQ recently.
Basically he thought that placing the FAQ in the public domain is the
best thing to do and complained about my copyright notice. I found out
that he had had a bad experience previously with a maintainer of a
newsgroup FAQ who had been "a nuisance". He had made money by selling
the FAQ which I suppose contained some input from other people. If I
remember correctly he had also not updated the FAQ and since it was his
copyright, others couldn't just take over without his consent.
Well to the point. My view was that I wanted to serve the newsgroup, did
not intend to make money from other peoples contributions because I didn't
intend to sell it at all. (I suppose that even if I wanted to sell,
basically the whole FAQ is in my words anyway). I wanted the copyright
notice "just in case" some other institution or company tried to profit
from the document without asking. (Free distribution and
copying for personal use, no profits made)
This was considered silly. There were apparently several companies
already that sold USENET-compilations on CD so as long as the FAQ is
posted to newsgroups the rights will be violated automatically, so what
was the point? I thought this was quite a valid point and it took me a
lot of thinking about what to do.
I guess what I am leading up to is the interesting thing he said that if
my copyright notice was violated and I didn't take legal action I would
loose my right. Basically, if you decide to let one slip and don't
litigate, you automatically loose the right to do so in the future ( all
this according to american law, or some precedent, I suppose). That means
that if you don't go after the USENET-CD selling companies you loose your
copyright in effect. Is this really true, I mean concerning American law
- the whole set of problems around differing national and international
laws set aside.
In Karen's case, would she have to take legal action to keep her copyright
intact?
/ Gunnar
Gunnar S. E. Andersson -------------------------------------------------------
d1gunnar@dtek.chalmers.se< Amiga in my heart, > BeOS - the only place where
gan@cd.chalmers.se < BeBox in my sight, > a blooper is a Good Thing(TM)
*No RISC No FUN* PowerPC!< and M$ waaay behind!> Join the revolution or BeLost
---------------------------------------------------- Chalmers U. of Technology
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