Nigel Hamilton wrote: > Umm ... Copyright only grants 'the right to copy' to the author.
True. But that wasn't how it used to be. More importantly, it is now a totally absurd situation because works are copied every time you open a web page. Copyright should restrict publishing, not copying. In fact, you cannot restrict copying on a digital network without shutting down the network and taking everyone's computer away. So, you can "copy" a file from my web site onto your computer so that your web browser can display it. You may keep a copy in your RAM, on your hard disk in a cache, or even as a saved filed. What you cannot do without my permission is to put that file up on your web site for other people to access. This is "publishing" not "copying". Copyright law should protect publishing, not copying. It is utterly nonsensical to try and restrict copying in today's digital society but that's exactly what the rich, greedy content providers are trying to do. > A lot of authors licence their works like this ... but the great > thing about Copyright is TMTOWTDI! I disagree. There are plenty of different ways to licence a work, but only 1 way to copyright it. Copyright is effectively a particular license dictated by law. > Copyright law grants rights to authors - it's authors who decide > how their works are published/copied/adapted/performed/rented etc. Yes to all of those except "copied". An author should not be able to restrict how many copies of a work a legitimate consumer makes for their own use, as long as the copier doesn't try to pass any copies on. At that point "copying" becomes "publishing" and is quite rightly protected. > Copyright Law is not the 'bad guy' - it protects authors in the first > place. Well, I'm only basing my facts on what Larry told me, but as I see it, copyright law didn't used to be the bad guy - it set fair terms of use to protect the rights of the author, publisher and consumer. Now it has been subverted more in favour of the publisher than anyone else. A
