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The first thing you want to do is negotiate!  Remember, if you get
1% of $1 Million dollars from 100 vendors, you have established a
substantial living for a relatively small investment.  The issue isn't
copyright but "Performance".  The original author keeps the original
material, but the referral is being "performed", much like the performance
of a video or a tape recording.

The alternative is to attempt to sue, which means risking major expenses and
a potential return of nothing.  This is something you reserve for total 
scofflaws who brazenly tell you, in writing, that they know you drew the 
picture and copyrighted it, but that they refuse to pay you anything.

If a News Service such as Dow Jones chooses to publish it's feed over the 
internet, whether by IRC or via WEB server, this doesn't suddenly eliminate
the expectation of royalties, it only reduces the distribution costs.

Even copyleft (GPL) software is subject to specific licensing restrictions,
if you want some other arrangement, you had better negotiate with the
appropriate authors - all 4,000 of them.

	Rex Ballard
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.


On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, J.J. Linden wrote:

> OK, I'm hardly the first to reply to this, I haven't read all the other 
> replies, so please forgive me if I'm covering used ground.
> 
> On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, Eric K. Meyer wrote:
> 
> > Here's a new one. I'm busily checking out the publications 
> > that NewsLink links to when, lo and behold, I notice that the 
> > background GIF used by one of them looks awfully familiar. At the
> > same time I note at the bottom of my screen that the file is 
> > being loaded from NewsLink's server. Sure enough, I view the 
> > source code for the publication's title page and there it is: 
> > The designer has linked to our background GIF as the 
> > background GIF for his publication.
> > 
> > The question now is, what should I do about it?
> 
> 1) Rename your background GIF and change the name in the html document.
> 
> 2) Using your favorite graphics tool, create a GIF with a similar 
> background, but with huge text letters saying "This background stolen 
> from NewsLink."
> 
> 3) Install it on the same directory under the original GIF's filename.
> 
> 4) Sit back and smile every time you see it in the access log .
> 
> 
> Jay Linden                                      Business: (416) 463-8932
> Toronto, Canada                                Residence: (416) 510-8948
> Net Presence/Marketing/Netsurfing      email: jjlinden@gold.interlog.com
>    
> 
> 

From rballard@cnj.digex.net Wed Jun 21 00:47:15 1995
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