This message is sent as a reply to a message forwarded by L.D Best on the
Arachne general mailinglist. It's sent both to that List and to the
originator of the forwarded message.
First of all I would like to point out that I am not a lawyer, I'm a
software developer. I have however read a few books about how the, often
US, law and how it can be used on the Internet. I'll only answer from the
facts I have about the US law since I assume that it's of the most interest
to you.
Bill Dickson wrote:
>If you are going to use Simtel as a download resource for your products from
>your (or any other) web site, you now have to point to our web pages and not
>to the files in the archive.
I doubt you will be able to have any legal stand for that position. The FTP
server is after all free to actually access by so called anonymous login.
Besides, providing the link isn't illegal, and this has been proven in
court cases from the US. Sorry I don't have a book handy to use for refrences.
However using the server may be illegal if some legal agreement on use has
been met, but then you have the problem that you'll need to start a
multitude of court cases. In each of these cases you have a little actual
chance of winning since you'll need to somehow prove that the person knew
that this was against the rules you had, and how and when this person
agreed on those terms.
And the problem of agreement grows bigger as the Internet is global in it's
nature. Just because an agreement would be considered met in the US doesn't
mean that it's also met in all other countries.
>Feel free to forward whatever information you think you have to whomever you
>want. Feel free to set up a competing site to Simtel as quick as you can.
As I also have mentioned on the mailinglist that L.D has forwarded the
messages to she, nor anyone else, can set up a competing site by copying
the current Simtel site. The reason for this is that this would violate the
international Bern convention about copyright laws. However if the entire
site is once downloaded the files can be sorted into a new directory tree
and new indexes can be created.
Because I'm at the moment able to utilise a fast internet connection I
actually have a copy that's only a few months old. Well it's only of the
interesting parts, the msdos and gnu directories, and not the entire
directory tree. Despite this I have no actual interest in setting something
like that up, I would much more appreciate if you kept hosting this service.
Oh, and if someone was wondering if it's illegal for me to have the
directory tree and indexes on CDs the answer is that it isn't illegal.
Copyright laws are flexible enough that you can keep what you download,
watch on TV or listen to on the radio as long as it is kept by the person
that recorded it and not given to anyone else. Of course if the information
was illegal to download you would be breaking the law. But then it must be
showed that you knew that it was illegal and that you knew you had it.
As a side note, I was wondering what you are going to do about the current
official mirrors. Will these simply vanish, or will they be left as they
are and not be able to update?
Sincerly,
Bernhard Eriksson
Karlstad, Sweden
