Dee Long wrote/asked: > > It is my understanding that the legal owner of a letter is the > > recipient. If that's accurate, then by extension, any subscriber to > > the list would legally own any of the messages. Any of you legal > > experts out there care > to > > comment/clarify?
Here's my legally-tinted understanding of copyright law. The recipient of a letter may own the actual physical letter with the writing on it. The recipient, however, does not own the right to control and use the writings or the work of the sender, other than to do so within the copyright law's "fair use" doctrine. In cyberspace terms, it means that you may own the computer that displays this post as you see it here, but I still retain my copyright in these words, subject to the "fair use" doctrine (also, you don't need that little copyright symbol to claim copyright protection). Let's say, for instance, I write a brilliant post on David Brauer's hairstyle and fashion sense, laced with creative and unique language, so much so that you begin to sell the work to others under some claim to ownership of the post. Nope. Can't do that. I retain my right to control the work, though you can certainly use all or portions of it so long as it is "fair." Now, getting legalistic on you, fair use is a deliberately ambiguous term but is determined by four general factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. As an example, I just ripped off these four factors from a web site that listed them, but likely it is fair use for me to do just that. That's the skinny, and we're getting a bit off the list-track so I'll end it there. Gregory Luce St. Paul (and a former entertainment law attorney who thankfully got out of that biz a long time ago) TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
