Subject: Re: is it ok if I quote? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 21 Sep 2002 15:13:45 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3241610025696621@naggum.no> * Pascal Costanza <costanza@web.de> |There's the concept of fair use I have already covered the Fair Use Doctrine. Do I have to repeat everything I say with every post? | You don't need to ask for permission to cite a text. If you truly believe this, you have copyright infringement lawsuits coming your way. Let me know how you feel about it after your first meeting with the lawyers for the intellectual property owner. | If you want people to refrain from citing your work you have to explicitly | state this, for example in a copyright statement. But even if you do that | there's a limited amount of fair use that is still allowed. The Fair Use Doctrine applies /because/ every published text is already protected by copyright. There are lots of things copyright do not protect, but you have to understand these issues before you burn yourself. In particular, quoting people's articles on Usenet is a very good example of the Fair Use Doctrine at work -- but moving some material to a different medium that the one in which it was previously published is restricted. That is the gist of my argument. Get a book on copyright law and study it. I suggest «The Illustrated Story of Copyright» by Edward Samuels as a good starting point. Making mistakes in this area is extremely painful. Err on the side of caution, but know what your rights, meaning specifically, what no one can legally stop you from doing. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.