On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 09:33:07AM -0400, Olin Lathrop wrote:
> Paul Hutchinson wrote:
> > So, if you copy something from the internet that does not have an
> > explicit public domain release statement or a license granting you
> > rights, it is likely a violation of copyright law to distribute it in
> > any way. If the work you copied and distributed has no identifying
> > mark you won't be sued for damages but you can be made to stop
> > distributing it. There is a concept of fair use but it is an
> > inadequately defined legal concept generally subject to
> > interpretation by the courts on a case by case basis.
> 
> So does that mean the various sites that carry copies of the PIClist traffic
> are in violation of the copyrights of the individual posters, of the
> "PIClist" whatever that is, of MIT?

Yup. Every post you write is copyrighted. I probably could get away with
fair use because I'm commenting on your post. But technically unauthorized
copies are a copyright violation.

>  These sites to real harm because they
> make it easy to mine for email addresses, whereas James' site tries to be
> careful about that.  I don't remember agreeing to give up my copyrights to
> anything I write here, so who owns the rights to messages I post?

You do. Say for the sake of argument that James wanted to publish a PicList
Book with selected writings from all of us. He'd have to go negotiate
copyright assignments for that material from each of us. Otherwise we could
sue for copyright infringement and damages.

BAJ
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