Re: Publishing on WWW

Jay Linden (jjlinden@gold.interlog.com)
Wed, 28 Dec 1994 12:41:42 -0800

At 07:45 PM 12/23/94 CST, Albert Lunde wrote:
>My rule of thumb about using other people work on the net (which may or may
>not stand up under the law), is that it is reasonable to quote them or
>reference them in the medium and context for which they were orginally
>published.
>
>Thus, quoting someone else's articles in the same USENET newsgroup, linking
>to other's Web pages, or showing off other's web pages in a live demo seem
>reasonable.

Sounds like fair use to me. Even if the live demo makes money for me.
Web pages are placed there to be seen. In their online state, they are,
IMO, in the public domain (I am not a lawyer, nor do I intend to start
playing one on the net).

IOW, the graphics in a web page, viewed on that page, are there for that
purpose. It's like the program you watch on television, the article you
read in the newspaper.

>
>Reposting someone's private e-mail to news, or reposting articles in a
>totally different newsgroup, or copying a web page and re-publish parts of
>it on the web without credit seem questionable.

Posting private email (without permission) is an obvious breach of
ethics, the legality of which I believe still hasn't been ultimately
tested. My feeling that cross-posting an article, or re-posting it, is
probably acceptable provided that the author and the original newsgroup
are credited. Usenet is a public place, and IMO articles posted there
are fair game to be read by the public - with the usual caveat to the
poster. Reposting simply to discredit the poster is a different story,
but if you don't want your business contacts in one group to see what you
post in alt.sex.bondage, you shouldn't be posting there.

>
>Screen shots in print are a sticky point. They fail by this rule of thumb,
>but one might draw the analogy to quoting literary works in reviews as
>"fair use". (I know the law has a more precise defintion of "fair use", but
>I can quote it.)

My take (I'm still not a lawyer) is that the artwork and text copy are
proprietary. As a part of a web page, they are part of the public
domain. Outside of that context, their usage would probably eventually
fall under the same guidelines as artwork in any other medium.

In other words, you can enjoy the pictures of the automobiles in the TV
commercial all you like. But if you screen-capture those pictures and
try to use them in your ad for another product, you've probably got a
legal problem.

Of course, it remains to see exactly where jurisdiction exists in a medium
which has no borders or geographic limitations and encompasses countries
whose concept of proprietary ownership of creative work may not be as
strong as those in North America.

As is always the case on the net, let the poster beware.

Jay Linden Phone: (416) 510-8948
Toronto, Canada Fax/Modem: (416) 510-8949
PR & Media Relations/Writing/Research email: jjlinden@gold.interlog.com
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