archiving on inet

I want to thank everyone for their input on this topic, very enlightening...

Seems to me that if a work is by simply being created has a copyright on it
then every inet provider who stores material a hard drive could be prosecuted
for copyright infringement.

There has been some question raised as to why this is important to cpunks, it
goes like this. If we are going to creat a workable system then some form of
release has to be done so that work that goes over inet is public unless
explicity noted as copyrighted and must include a fair use statement OR it
must be in a form that prohibits casual access. What this last point means to
me is that if it is copyrighted it should be encrypted. This encryptred file
would have a address and public key attacked. To unlock the file you would
contact the author and fulfill their requirements for fair use (ie pay money
for a book). The author would then send a private key to the user who coul
then unlock the file and use it. Anyone who had possession of a unlocked file
without a private key and being on the authors list of authorized users would
be committing a clear case of theft. Anyone who gave a third party a valid
private key would be committing conspiracy.

At this point I expect my home node to come online in a couple of weeks (we
may have finaly solved the bugs that kept us down) and should start allowing
public access a week or so after that. Each user who calls my system will
need agree to a statement of something like the following:

I, (username), agree that any material which I create on this system or one
of its satellite systems is public domain. I also agree that this statement
is binding to my physical person and not to a particular handle or name that
I may choose to use or change. I further agree that any material of
commercial or of a copyrighted nature MUST contain a fair use policy that
prohibits ONLY commercial use AND will contain a real address by which any
person may contact me for further interaction. I further agree that any file
which is of a commercial or copyrighted nature and does not fulfill the above
conditions MUST be encrypted and contain in plain-text a address whereby a
person may contact me for access the un-encrypted material. I further agree
that as long a the file is encrypted OR contains a fair use statement I wiwll
not bring any legal proceeding against ANY provider or user in Internet or
other electronic system this material may be transfered to for storage.

Does anyone see any problems with such a proviso?

> Seems to me that if a work is by simply being created has a copyright on it
> then every inet provider who stores material a hard drive could be prosecuted
> for copyright infringement.

  I may be wrong, but I don't see it this way.  Articles and research 
papers that I write are copyrighted.  If I choose to distribute these in 
the net, it's a given that inet providers will have these stored on their 
drives.  But...  If you archive the net, and compile it into a different 
media that you then sell(presumably to make a profit), then there is a 
matter of copyright infringement.  

-ck

Chris Knight <cknight@crl.com> wrote:

>   I may be wrong, but I don't see it this way.  Articles and research
> papers that I write are copyrighted.  If I choose to distribute these in
> the net, it's a given that inet providers will have these stored on
> their drives.  But...  If you archive the net, and compile it into a
> different media that you then sell(presumably to make a profit),
> then there is a matter of copyright infringement.  

So if I sell (at a profit) a netnews feed to subscribers via modem, it
is not copyright infringement, but if I sell the same data on a CDROM,
you cliam copyright infringement.  So I suppose you want to give some
kind of list of what types of media are acceptable for transmitting
netnews feeds, and which are not?  And I suppose that the Federal
Copyright Beaureau will then need to enforce a new law to make sure that
netnews is distributed only via government-approved methods.  Ahh.. I
can smell the new gummint conspiracy already.

The plain and simple fact is: When you post a message to usenet, you do
so with the expectation that others will receive it.  You can have no
way of knowing or limiting who may get it; that is given by the nature
of the network.  Usenet news is, and is intended to be, publicly
accessable information.  If there is something you don't want
distributed, then DON'T POST IT!

On Wed, 26 Jan 1994, Matthew J Ghio wrote:

> Chris Knight <cknight@crl.com> wrote:
> 
> >   I may be wrong, but I don't see it this way.  Articles and research
> > papers that I write are copyrighted.  If I choose to distribute these in
> > the net, it's a given that inet providers will have these stored on
> > their drives.  But...  If you archive the net, and compile it into a
> > different media that you then sell(presumably to make a profit),
> > then there is a matter of copyright infringement.  
> 
> So if I sell (at a profit) a netnews feed to subscribers via modem, it
> is not copyright infringement, but if I sell the same data on a CDROM,
> you cliam copyright infringement.  So I suppose you want to give some
> kind of list of what types of media are acceptable for transmitting
> netnews feeds, and which are not?  And I suppose that the Federal
> Copyright Beaureau will then need to enforce a new law to make sure that
> netnews is distributed only via government-approved methods.  Ahh.. I
> can smell the new gummint conspiracy already.
> 
> The plain and simple fact is: When you post a message to usenet, you do
> so with the expectation that others will receive it.  You can have no
> way of knowing or limiting who may get it; that is given by the nature
> of the network.  Usenet news is, and is intended to be, publicly
> accessable information.  If there is something you don't want
> distributed, then DON'T POST IT!
> 

Again, I may be wrong, since I am not a lawyer, nor would I want to be 
shot as one...

You didn't seem to like my thoughts about "media shift"...  Let's say the 
same thing in a different example...  You wrote a letter to 
Communications Week which was published; something you expected.  George 
over there runs a news stand, and he sells Communication Week; nobody has 
a problem with him selling magazines for a living, do we?  But, we have 
Bill over here who subscribed to CW, photocopies articles and letters he 
likes, and compiles these into a book which he then sells... Now we have 
a problem.

I'm not trying to draw lines, but I do see a change of media as a reason 
to request the author's permission to re-publish.  You would be 
distributing the material in a way different than the author intended.


-ck