Character Constants

[Jordan Abel]

Nit: Under USC Title 17 (US Federal copyright law), at least prior to
WIPO, archival copying of an entire work is fair use. (Of course, the
original copy may still be a violation.) But I agree that Rod's legal
argument is nonsense.

You do have to consider the landscape though - It's arguable that there
is an assumption that anything posted on the internet that's not behind
a login / credit card / etc is free to load in your web browser and
view, just like there is an assumption in the real that you can enter
any land that does not have a fence or any "no trespassing" signs
posted.

For another example: you included an excerpt from Al Balmer's
copyrighted work and I in turn included that excerpt and the entire text
of your own in this message. Under the strict interpretation of
copyright law that has been put forward in this thread, this would have
been illegal. I guess all the google groups users are really just trying
to avoid liability for copyright violation.

 

[Al Balmer]

You do have to consider the landscape though - It's arguable that there
is an assumption that anything posted on the internet that's not behind
a login / credit card / etc is free to load in your web browser and
view, just like there is an assumption in the real that you can enter
any land that does not have a fence or any "no trespassing" signs
posted.

For another example: you included an excerpt from Al Balmer's
copyrighted work and I in turn included that excerpt and the entire text
of your own in this message. Under the strict interpretation of
copyright law that has been put forward in this thread, this would have
been illegal.

Probably not, for two reasons - including excerpts or even entire
short texts as part of a discussion or review, or for illustration,
falls under fair use, and the terms of service for your Internet
provider likely include a weakening of your copyrights, so as to allow
them to post your messages in a public forum, and to archive them.

OTOH, if someone collects a bunch of articles written here, and
republishes them as a book without getting permission from all the
authors, that's illegal. Even if you publish it on the Internet

Having said that, if you distributed it for free, you could be made to
stop, but there would be little monetary penalty.

 

[Jordan Abel]

OTOH, if someone collects a bunch of articles written here, and
republishes them as a book without getting permission from all the
authors, that's illegal. Even if you publish it on the Internet

So where does google stand on that issue? (Sorry, I had to ask)
Though... I bet if it was tested, the X-no-archive header would provide
a basis for a ruling similar to the recent robots.txt decision. Local
custom [the "locality" here being the internet] clearly has some
influence on the interpretation of the law.

 

[Al Balmer]

BTW, this is getting really off-topic for c.l.c., so I'll try to
restrain myself in future.