On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 2:14 PM, Stefano Bagnara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Robert Burrell Donkin ha scritto: > > On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Stefano Bagnara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > >> I understand that there is difference between downloading and > >> distributing, but this difference IMHO exists when the license is known > >> and the license itself make a difference (most licenses do). I don't > >> agree that by downloading and *using* files under an unknown license you > >> make "fair use" and it is ok > > > > copyright law distinguishes between these two cases (downloading and > > distributing). copying works is often only arguably illegal. > > distributing a copy without a license to do so is clearly illegal. > > > > for example, in order to view a web page, a local copy must be made. > > few web pages explicitly license this copying. however, in most > > jurisdictions this act would be covered by the fair use of the implied > > license. this is very different from distributing the same page for > > example by hosting a complete copy on your website. > > There are IMHO 2 important differences: > > 1) We are downloading the file from maven central, that is not where the > copyright holder published it (or at least we don't know this and we are > trying to understand who is the copyright holder and what rights he > grants to us).
do you know that the copyright holder didn't publish it there? most maven poms are uploader by the copyright holder. do you know that the uploaded doesn't posses a license to distribute the pom? i'm happy to act in good faith. even though the central repository lacks embedded licenses, i trust that the administrators have obtained the required permissions. if not they my defense would be that i acted in good faith believing that maven had secured the appropriate licenses. i think i have reasonable cause for believing that. > 2) Downloading a webpage for browsing is much more clear as "fair use" > than automatically download metadata as part of an automated project. I > can browse google as fair use, but I'm not sure I can create > applications scraping google results without referencing google as part > of an automated software. In fact they provides API with a much more > limited license to do that. If I write a tool that query Amazon via AWS > I can only make 1 query per second as per their license. If I write a > tool that simply browse their website and do thousands of query per > seconds to do the same things I would do with their API I don't think > this would be taken as "fair use". AIUI fair use is simply the description given to the rights grant under the US constitution. temporary local copies for personal use are ok provided that you have rights to copy once. when someone places a page on the internet with the obvious aim of encouraging people to read it then they are granting an implied license. this in turn entitles people to their constitutional rights to make temporary copies for personal use. AIUI additional legislation was inacted to criminalize large scale automatic querying since it was not clearly covered by standard copyright - robert --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
