Re: OMG!

["Sheldon Simms" <sheldon@interprice.com>]

Im Artikel <PnOJ6.30261$ua5.8803531@typhoon1.ba-dsg.net> schrieb "Frank
Townsend" <ftownsen@iamdigex.net>:


> But, you see, you *still* lose even if you can prove that the monetary
> value of the software is $0.  Read the following from the 9th Circuit: 
> "As might be expected,
> published case law deals with works marketed for profit. However, it
> cannot be inferred from that fact that the absence of a conventional
> market for a work, the copyright to which is held by a nonprofit,
> effectively deprives the holder of copy-right protection . . . . The
> statute by its terms is not limited to market effect but includes also
> "the effect of the use on the value of the copyrighted work." 17 U.S.C.
> � 107(4) (emphasis added). As Sony states, "[e]ven copying for
> noncommercial purposes may impair the copyright holder's ability to
> obtain the rewards that Congress intended him to have." Sony, 464 U.S.
> at 450. Those rewards need not be limited to monetary rewards;
> compensation may take a variety of forms. Id. at 447 n.28 

It's not at all clear to me that I "lose".

First, we're talking about actual damages. In order to claim actual
damages, there has to be some mapping of loss of "rewards" to loss of
money. In other words, a price has to be put on the "rewards", whether
they were originally monetary or not. 

Second, I doubt there is much in the way of applicable case law.
I'm not saying that there is no case law, but I don't see this as
being an open-and-shut case unless there actually is a precedent that
very closely fits the circumstances. I think such a case would be
precedent-setting, rather than precedent-following.

I think that this whole discussion has moved quite a long way into
the realm of the theoretical. The only way to really know what the
outcome would be is to actually bring a case and fight it out in
court, but that won't happen. We're talking about software that
the copyright holders have no interest in protecting. If they had
an interest, they would have protected it already.

---- 
sheldon@semanticedge.com  "The term (denotation t) denotes the object denoted
                           by the object denoted by t." -- KIF