>Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 17:41:39 -0700 >To: Ed Gerck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: Bill Lovell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: Feist (was Re: [IFWP] Re: DOJ investigating NSI) > >At 05:13 PM 5/5/99 -0700, you wrote: >>Carl Oppedahl wrote: >> >>> The parallel to the Whois database and COM zone file is quite clear. You >>> can go through a Whois listing, line by line, and nothing in it is original >>> expression authored by NSI. >> >>This is a common misconception -- "how do you know it", is the question. >> >>If you got your entries by randomly trying all entries in the COM namespace, >>fine. But, if you copied it all and it turns out that NSI had inserted ghost >>entries >>of their own invention as markers, so that only they knew about them, then you >>have infringed on their copyright to *those* entries and by extension to the >>entire >>table where they are. The same happens with savvy phone companies that now >>include ghost entries in their directories -- if they appear in someone >>else's listing, >>bingo! ... since they could not have been possibly guessed or discovered. >>The same >>reasoning goes for mistakes -- since the probability of two companies >>making the >>*same* mistakes in a database is very small. > >Nonsense. The "ghost" entries theory works only if the underlying material >without the ghost entries (e.g., a complex computer program such as an >operating system) constituted copyrightable material. The device works >great for catching copiers, since the "access" part of the infringement case >is thus shown. However, phone book listings are not copyrightable. >> >>Likewise, if you print your version of the Bible, I don't believe that anyone >>but Him could enforce copyrights -- but, if you just xerox a Bible's edition >>from a publisher and sell it then probably not even Him will be willing to >save >>you ;-) > >Nonsense. You can get all of the "Great Books" such as all of Shakespeare >off the net or at the book store, print or copy, and sell away, and there's >nothing anyone can do about it. That, indeed, is the reason why the >Constitutional provision giving inventors and authors exclusive rights for >limited times exists: eventually, whatever was for that limited time under >such exclusive right falls into the public domain; you can copy and distribute >all you want and there's no legal recourse against you for so doing. Public >domain is public domain, and what a person may have used as the mechanical >source of the material does not matter. > >And by the way, Xerox shall be after you for misuse of its >trademark -- "xerox" is not a verb. :-) > >Bill Lovell
