On 12:05 PM 8/19/02, Charlie Summers wrote: >At 2:15 PM -0400 8/19/02, Chuq Von Rospach is rumored to have typed: > >> On Monday, August 19, 2002, at 10:38 AM, Norbert Bollow wrote: ><snip> >> > * Without explicit permission, no-one is allowed to mirror the list, >> > or create public archives. >> > >> > * Just telling people about the existence of the list (by mentioning >> > it in a directory of lists) is ok even without explicit permission. ><snip> >> Why do you believe those are implied by copyright law? I'm curious what >> your rationale is. > >http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html#q38 > >http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html#q47 > >http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html#q60
One could argue that subscribing and mirroring a mailing list on the Internet is akin to the paper book parallel of buying a single copy of a book then putting it in a lending library. In both cases, the "owner" provided the item to subsequently be shared (via the mailing list subscription or the book sale). Both purposes serve to make the information available to a wider group of people. Lending libraries are permitted by copyright law, even though many book publishers were against the idea when libraries first became popular. Why should mailing list mirrors and archives be treated differently? Note: I'm NOT saying they should, or they shouldn't, just that we should consider why either of these is a possible interpretation of present copyright law. I can't find anything specific in Title 17 regarding the establishment of lending libraries and how they were permitted under copyright law. :-( <http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/index.html> For those who want to read it raw. jc
