Re: Net piracy?

[jeffr@bmerha2a.bnr.ca (Jeffrey Robertson)]

Ooops!  I forgot one last point in my last post.


In article <309c1t$64k@news.iastate.edu>,
Ian Schmidt <irsman@iastate.edu> wrote:
>
>If you scanned a book in and
>put it on FTP for use with a "reading emulator" (perhaps such as an
>Apple Newton), would you still not be in violation of copyright and be
>in big trouble?  What if the book was published in 1984 and is now out
>of print?  What, you say, it's still protected?  Uhoh....

You're only in trouble if the copyright holder complains.  This has been
my point all along!  Yes, a lost classics CD would be in violation of
a whole raft of copyrights.  But if no one complains, it doesn't matter.
This law really is a case of the 11th Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Get Caught.)
If you're not caught, no crime was committed.  If you were caught,
then you're (likely) ordered to cease and dessist, and pay reparations.

IMHO, if some publisher rose from the dead to complain about an Apple II
CD, he'd be perfectly happy to just take some royalty and crawl back
into the grave.

Cheers,
-- 
-------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------
Jeffrey Robertson                    |  jeffr@bnr.ca  |      BNR, Ottawa
"I speak for myself, not BNR" - Me   +----------------+       (Meriline)
"Verbing weirds language" - Calvin                      OC-48 FiberWorld