Copyright

[Israel Stein]

>From: paulrevenkojones at aol.com
>
>Subject: Re: Copyright
>
>Israel and all:
>
>Not quite bury-able yet. Both of the statements below are only 
>partially correct.
>Telling somebody a piece of copyrighted information is "fair use" and allowed.
>Telling somebody a piece of copyrighted information has no test 
>under the law since there is no restriction on the passing on of 
>copyrighted information verbally; it is, of course, simply rude, if 
>not unethical not to cite the source. Legally, one could stand in 
>front of a crowd and read the entire Pierce Atlas out loud without 
>any bar (other than utter boredom).
>Posting copyrighted information on a public e-mail list constitutes 
>"publication" - whether for profit or not, it's irrelevant. (You 
>can't publish it i n your church newsletter either.)  Publication of 
>copyrighted information is a violation of the copyright.
>Fair use applies almost exclusively to published written (not 
>pictorial) material. One may "fairly use" without royalty or strict 
>permission small (legally defined and tested) proportions of 
>copyrighted material in other publications as long as it is properly 
>cited. I spent several years in college text book publishing where 
>this is a major issue; as a courtesy we always asked first no matter 
>what. If you, for example, wished to say in your church newsletter 
>that the Knabe in the sanctuary was built in 1915 according to the 
>latest edition of Pierce, that is perfectly acceptable. You could 
>not photocopy the relevant page in the Atlas and reproduce it in 
>your church bulletin, however. One might also copy a very small 
>portion of the Pierce Atlas to demonstrate in a publication how it 
>is organized, say for pedagogical purposes, e.g. by year of 
>manufacture and serial! number sequence. Only the most litigious and 
>persnickety lawyer would pursue this as an infringement, and would 
>probably be lose as long as the portion and proportion cited is 
>minute (legally defined).

Ah, yes. See, Paul, the Fair Use exception to copyright law exists 
very much for the purpose of facilitating educational endeavors - 
which  textbook publication definitely is. The exception does not 
exist for strictly commercial activities - such as providing 
information to one's clients or otherwise engaging in non-educational 
profit-making activity without having purchased the copyrighted 
"work", which is precisely the case here by the questioner's own admission.

Whether or not the information in Pierce is copyrighted would, of 
course, be separate question. David Boyce is correct regarding US 
law. Due to a court decision it is currently not protected by 
copyright in the US. But in most of the rest of the world it is. And 
since this list circulates internationally, this would likely be a 
violation of British or Australian law - which might just have 
jurisdiction due to the circulation of the list. And there is 
legislation pending in the US to negate this court decision and 
restore copyright protection to the data to collections such as 
Pierce (and telephone books and other such compilations). So this 
practice of providing Pierce data over this list to persons who then 
want to use it in profit-making activity that is not educational in 
nature is still problematic on several levels - if not currently 
illegal in the US.

(My apologies for my other quite messy reply)

Israel Stein
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