Licenses (was Re: Should I add a "Micro" PDP11/73 to the Herd?)

From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
Date: Sat Jun 24 08:20:46 2000

On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 06:14:17PM -0700, Chuck McManis wrote:
>> The copyright means you can't make copies
>>of it (other than limited amounts for reference with attribution) to sell
>>or give away without expressed permission.
>
>Again, this isn't quite correct. The rights to make copies of a "work"
>initially rest with the creator of that work. The creator (author what have
>you) can then choose to grant limited subsets of those rights (or not) to
>other people.

I think Allison was talking about the "fair use" principle, which *does*
allow you to publish small excerpt of copyrighted works without royalties
under particular conditions. Book reviews, etc... This can be a gray area
since people can disagree over how big an excerpt has to be before it's
too big. You certainly can't publish an entire Stephen King novel, tack
the line "I liked it!" on the end, and get away with it.

John Wilson
D Bit
Received on Sat Jun 24 2000 - 08:20:46 BST