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A few years ago XyWrite was tauted as a freeware downloadable
from a specified web site. TTG very aggressively stepped in.
Fred
----- Original Message -----
Subject: Re: Installing Xy under 32-bit
Win; Manual; ANSI
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:
mailto:Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxxBrian.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:
mailto:Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxxBrian.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
mailto:lb136@xxxxxxxxlb136@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
411 W. 54 St. Apt. 2D
New York, NY 10019
(212)
977-3223
http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman
Alternate
address:
mailto:nbauman@xxxxxxxxnbauman@xxxxxxxx
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