Dave wrote:
>
> Sure it is. It's not at all clear that list owners own the content
> posted to their lists. They own the "compilation", but not the actual
> content.
Owning the compilation means that you control the use of the
collection. You cannot go out and sell an individual posting
seperate from the rest of the others, but you can use the group of
them, and say, republish them on the web, or profit from the
collection as a whole.
If the poster's copyright on their message prohibited the compilation
copyright holder from making money, it would also prohibit the
compilation copyright holder from republishing on the web, or
authorizing an external party (say, a web archiver) to republish
members' postings on their behalf. If we admit that the list owner
can authorize republishing list-member's copyrighted postings as a
collection, then we've also admitted that the list-owner can also
republish them as the collection, with or without profit.
That is the purpose of the compilation copyright -- it applies to
collections where either (a) the individual items are not under
copyright protection or (b) the individual items are copyright some
other entitity. In both cases, the compilation copyright holder can
control what is done with the whole collection. And in both cases,
the compilation copyright holder cannot control what someone might do
with individual items. In (a) anyone can make use of them, in (b)
anyone can use them with only permission of the item copyright holder
irrespective of the wishes of the compilation copyright holder.
> Selling advertisements on a list archive is, from the point of view of
> a poster, "someone else using something I own to make money"--unless
> the list owner makes it clear up front that submissions become her
> property.
In my case, charter and digest notations spell out that by posting,
the poster grants permission for their post to be part of the
compilations I hold copyright to and which I control the use
of. [Plural because I have two overlapping collections that I name and
use]. One does not have to give up copyright to grant limited use to
another. My posters retain their copyright while granting me the
right to use it in the collection as I deem fit.
And, because of the particulars of my list, the meat of my list is
recipes, which, actually, aren't enforceably subject to copyright
protection per se (they could, theoretically be patented, and literary
description of the dish or artistic expression in describing the
directions could be copyrighted -- by courts have taken a dim view of
honoring copyright for any single food recipe). My compilation
copyright for the recipe collection portion falls more under (a)
above, than (b).
--
Michelle Dick [EMAIL PROTECTED] East Palo Alto, CA
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
