Kent Crispin wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 24, 1999 at 11:38:28AM -0400, Diane Cabell wrote:
> > you have any right in it. If you pay someone to take pictures of your wedding but
>fail to
> > do it under a carefully worded contract, you are only entitled under US law to
>get copies
> > of the photos. You have no right to reproduce them or distribute them publicly.
>The
> > copyright ownership in the photos belongs to the photographer because that is the
>person
> > who "created" the work.
> >
> > > If they *didn't* own it and it belonged to the Internet community - the
> > > only other viable candidate, then the USG can step out right now. :-)
> >
> > That's exactly what I'm saying.
>
> Fine -- the contact database belongs to the Internet community.
> Presuming you can define "Internet community", how do you propose
> that the Internet community regain control of it? The only entity in
> a position to do anything for us is...the USG.
First, it isn't at all clear who owns the db as between the contractor and the USG. I
was
speculating but have not read the contracts or done any of the necessary research to
even guess
the answer to that. But, assuming it turned out that ownership wasn't clearly covered
by the
terms of the contractor's agreement, then what?
What is "it"? First, would a computer-generated compilation be the work of an author?
This is
possibly addressed in the DMCA or the Copyright Act itself, I've just not considered
the
question myself. Maybe there is no "it" meaning no compiled list (because of the
defect of
computer-generated authorship being possibly invalid). If there is no compilation,
then the
individual data would be devoid of ownership by anyone (published data can't be
protected;
secret data can; this is likely published data since it was submitted to a stranger
without a
confidentiality provision).
If there's an "it", then at most, who would "it" belong to? It would only belong to
the Internet
community at large if it were in the public domain. That's pretty hard to accomplish
these
days, believe it or not. You practically have to beat your copyrights with a club to
extinguish
them. It might belong to the registrants on the list, rather than the Internet
community at
large. Either way, not all the registrants/community are US citizens ergo, the USG is
not
necessarily the appropriate rep.
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
