Subject: Re: Advertising on Individual's Web server From: meyer@newslink.org Date: Tue, 18 Apr 95 19:56:24 PDT

Status: RO
X-Status: A


>There are two ways to pass on a link.  One is to become a proxy server, 
>which means you copy the page into your proxy's memory and pass the html 
>via http to the browser's machine.  This would be a copyright violation, 
>since you are copying the publication into the memory of two computers 
>for commercial use.

Probably, but not automatically. The technology isn't as important as the 
purpose. If the copying is a mere convenience for a single use of something 
that could be obtained in a less convenient way without violating 
copyright, the use probabably would be deemed a fair use. (Sony v. 
Universal)

>> The analogous situation is a sports bar. It can have a game playing
>> on the TV as long as no special admission is charged and the signal
>> is readily available outside the bar. If you put a Dilbert file on
>> the Web as a GIF, you make it fair game to be linked to be another
>Not so fast.  There is a great deal of copyrighted material.  Some of it 
>is published under very generous license terms, but MOST is protected 
>from unlicensed distribution.

If you put a GIF on the Web as a free item that anyone may download, then 
anyone may link to it from an HTML page. If you don't like that, you can 
take it off the Web. The key here, as far as copyright law is concerned, is 
that no one is depriving you of monetary reward. After all, you already are 
giving the thing away for free.

HOWEVER, you could be accused in an unfair competition tort is you, say, 
used your version of the free item to drum up support for your Web site at 
the expense of the support the originator was trying to drum up by giving 
the item away for free at his or her site.

So it's a difference that makes no difference? Not really. Tort common law 
is a state-by-state affair, with no provision for crossing international 
boundaries, unlike copyright law, which is increasingly global in scope.

____________________________________________________

ERIC K. MEYER                    meyer@newslink.org 
WWW NewsLink       http://www.newslink.org/newslink/
____________________________________________________


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