Brian Butterworth wrote: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/29/comment.intellectualproperty >
[Caveat - US-law biased] Well, if we're linking... Bruce Schneier links to a Law Review article about the a day in the life of a "normal" person (no p2p filesharing etc, just you or me) in the US: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/law_review_arti.html "There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John’s activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, barring last minute salvation from the notoriously ambiguous fair use defense, he would be liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year." Yes, that's right. Over $4 billion a year. One of the many interesting blog posts is: An example is that in the paper (p543/7) "John" replies to an email including parts of the email he's replying to. Most people (myself) would think that that was fair use. However, clear case law is given in the paper which shows that since the email you have received is an unpublished work (sending private correspondence doesn't count as "publishing") you have very restricted fair use rights and that these won't be enough to allow you to include excerpts from the mail. This means that it's quite likely that email forwarding is unlicensed copying and thus illegal. So, should we DRM email programs? Bruce: "When laws are this far outside the social norms, it's time to change them." David PS: That's one huge problem with DRM - it can't use common sense. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
