[WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List

Mon Jun 27 16:11:48 UTC 2005

THANKS. TRUE. LAW TOO HAS ETHICS TO FOLLOW. LAW FOR MAN BY MAN.

YOURS,
DANIEL RAY
DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM
27/06/05 MONDAY

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Ray Saintonge wrote :
>DF wrote:
>
>>Either we need to accept that such a list, though
>>potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern
>>to keep around.  
>>OR
>>
>>We need to come to some agreement that such lists will
>>be maintained despite the potential liability.  In
>>which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is
>>ultimately the one who is liable.
>>
>It is interesting to follow some of the links in our Feist v. Rural article. I was just reading through the decision in Assessment Technologies v. Wiredata (ooops I almost typed Wikidata. :-) ) http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/JX03YB6O.pdf where it was ruled that the copyright owner could not use copyright law to prevent access to non-copyright information. Cited in that case also was the case of Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1520-28 (9th Cir. 1992). There the court ruled that it was fair use for Accolade to make a copy of and reverse engineer Sega's console software in order to make its own games playable on Sega's system. The court said, "For technical reasons, Accolade had to make a copy of the source code in order to be able to obtain this information. It didn’t want to sell the source code, produce a game-console operating system, or make any other use of the copyrighted code except to be able to sell a noninfringing product, namely a computer game. The court held that this “intermediate copying” of the operating system was a fair use, since the only effect of enjoining it would be to give Sega control over noninfringing products, namely Accolade’s games."
>
>It is also of interest that in a later ruling on costs Wiredata was awarded $91,765.28 in legal fees. To a large extent this was because there was an attempt to extent rights beyond what was avaiable in copyrights, and a recognition that the defendant in such cases is often at a disadvantage. "When the prevailing party is the defendant, who by definition receives not a small award but no award, the presumption in favor of awarding fees is very strong. See Diamond Star Building Corp. v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506 (4th Cir. 1994). For without the prospect of such an award, the party might be forced into a nuisance settlement or deterred altogether from enforcing his rights.
>
>AFAIK The discussion so far on this point has been an internal one, with no intervention by anyone representing EB. I don't believe that we are infringing their copyrights, but even if we were there are steps which they must take if they wish to enforce that right. The first such step would be to issue a take-down order. That would give us an opportunity to comply without further problems. In a clear case of copyright violation we would indeed be required to take things down when we become aware of the problem even without such a notice. Where there is serious doubt about the copyrightability of the material we do better by giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
>
>Ec
>
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