On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 8:49 PM, David A. Jewell <[email protected]> wrote: > No but if they are owned by a private individual or even a corporate entity > such > as a library they own the mechanical and electronic reproduction rights. Just > the same as they own the right to tell people no photographs of the inside of > their home it that's how they want it.
If the material is not under copyright then the only way an owner cannot prevent someone from copying the source is to not provide access to it. An owner does not have any sort of reproduction rights to public domain material. Often individuals, libraries and other institutions make people sign agreements stating that they will not reproduce the material, but if you do the most they can do is revoke your access to any other materials that they own. (I guess they could also come after you for breach of contract, but I'm not sure what the result would be of that. What damages did they incur?) > Your are correct - it isn't copyright, but ownership rights. Say you owned > a > VanGogh. I visit you and take a photo of it, and then disseminate it on the > internet without your permission or knowledge. Same thing as what people do > with music autographs - I own it, I get to say who sees it. I agree that it > is > mostly a healthy thing to be able to study these great resources in the ways > that the internet enables us to, but to take what belongs to a private > individual and disseminate without their permission is electronic theft. I've never heard of 'ownership rights' with regard to copying. That why we have copyright laws. If I owned a van Gogh and you took a picture and disseminated it without my permission you would be well within your rights to do so since the work is in the public domain. Also we need to be careful with the word theft. Copying a copyrighted work is copyright infringement. In law copyright infringement is not theft as it does not deprive the original from the owner. -----Jay _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
