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Subject:Re: Copyright on the internet From:The Ashrafs <ashrafs -at- JUNO -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 13 Mar 1997 22:54:20 EST
On Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:03:06 -0600 geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA writes:
> My opinion: I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on the
> Internet, but one of the commonly accepted underpinnings of
> copyright law is that the protected material must exist in
> permanent form (e.g., on paper). E-mail doesn't exist in
I believe the legalese usually sounds like "fixed in a tangible medium"
-- and just as cassette tape is good enough for songs being intellectual
property, floppy and hard disk [which are made of the same material] are
good enough for software -- and words.
> there are no clear legal precedents, so don't be the first
> person to establish one the hard way.
I would be careful with that blanket statement. There is an increasing
body of legal precedents. For example, CNN tells me Time or someone is
suing a news site that "re-packages" their "content" by presenting it in
frames.
By the way, the department at RPI that handles Tech Comm [Language,
Literature and Communication] has some material on the topic. I am
offline right now but you can find a link at www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/wwwllc
My tuppence 'orth.
Sabahat.
--------------------
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