Re: Installing Xy under 32-bit Win; Manual; ANSI

[Norman Bauman nbauman@xxxxxxxx]

I'm a writer too.

I've seen my news stories distributed non-commercially on the Internet
without my specific permission, and I was happy to see them distributed.

I know lots of writers who had the same reaction. Many of them wrote their
work as work for hire, while working for publishers, so they don't even own
the copyright. In fact, they're violating the law when they put their own
work on their own web sites.

I assume that the XyWrite manual was work for hire, so we're not violating
the copyright of any real person -- we're violating the copyright, if at
all, of a corporation which is the final assignee and now defunct.

Copyright law has to make sense. It was written for a reason. Arbitrarily
protecting the copyright in abandoned property of a company that no longer
exists doesn't make sense. We have an elastic clause -- fair use. It allows
us to make copies for scholarly, educational and research purposes. I would
call this fair use.

Computer manuals really are a special case, because they're so valuable to
the people who use the programs, and of so little value to the company that
owns them. Intel used to send me their manuals free. In the real world, I
don't think anybody would hesitate to photocopy a manual of an orphan
computer or software that they were using. And the company would tell you
to go ahead and copy it if they couldn't provide it.

When I was in college, Dover and Kraus Reprint Service provided a valuable
service by publishing scientific and literary classics that were out of
print. I was finally able to read the books that my teachers kept referring
to.

It was right then. It's right now.

The only reason we can't do that any more is that Walt Disney and the other
big political campaign contributors have gotten the copyright period
extended. That doesn't make it wrong now.

Norman


At 05:34 PM 8/15/02 -0400, Judith Davidsen wrote:
>
>Okay, I am a writer. You are not allowed to put my work
>online either for sale or for free without my permission. I
>own the copyright and it is up to me to decide how my work
>is used--you can't even quote more than a snippet in a
>review without my permission. As far as I know, this is
>still the law.
>
>As righteously angry as we may be over the Technology
>Group's abandoning us--and as much as I would love to see
>the manuals online, especially if they were searchable--as
>long as TTG owns the copyright to the manuals, even if they
>never intend to do anything with those manuals ever again
>for the life of the copyright, we still have to negotiate
>anything we want to do with them.
>
>If I'm wrong about this then I guess that editor really did
>have the right publish my work under his daughter's byline.
>
>Judith Davidsen
>
>
>> Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>> You mean, "as if somebody might still be able to make
>> money off that property and I'm stealing the bread from
>> their mouth" kind of "as if"?
>>
>> ...except that nobody seems to have any desire to make any
>> money from what I want to offer...and offer for free. I
>> don't concede your point.
>>
>> -B
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Leslie Bialler [mailto:lb136@xxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 1:00 PM
>> To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: Installing Xy under 32-bit Win; Manual; ANSI
>>
>> Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>> > I'm planning on putting the Xy3 manual I'm "digitizing"
>> on some web-space
>> > I've got, and I'm also thinking of offering the Xy 3 & 4
>> programs...but I'm
>> > willing to back-off on the programs if the consensus of
>> the group is that it
>> > shouldn't be done.--
>>
>> Well, Salinger hasn't published anything in almost 40
>> years. I gess it would be
>> OK to put "Catcher in the Rye" up on my website. I'll just
>> scan my copy of the
>> book right in there and you all can download it!
>>
>> As if!
>>
>> ----
>> Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
>> lb136@xxxxxxxx
>> 61 W. 62 St, NYC 10023
>> 212-459-0600 X7109 (phone) 212-459-3677 (fax)
>> > http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup
>
>

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Norman Bauman
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(212) 977-3223
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