Re: copyright piracy

**"Christopher P. Lindsey" t*@spamfodder.com**

> So is a pirated disc really a loss?

Not necessarily.  But it's still a pirated, and hence, illegal copy.

Of course, invoking copyright law is all about losses.  You can pursue
damages if you can't show lost income, so the value is almost always
inflated.

I would argue that making parallels between Internet-published works
and songs probably won't work, though.  Songs typically represent an
artist's genre or style that people will follow.  If I hear an illegal
copy of a song that I really like, I might be prompted to look at their
other songs and buy a CD.

I don't know of anyone who has ever received a copy of an article online
and said 'Wow, I really need to start reading the Sacramento Bee more.
Especially articles written by Rick Kushman!'

And here's another scenario to consider...

Someone takes an article and sends it to a mailing list or newsgroup.
That message is archived on the list's Web server (yes, this list has
private archives, but alpine-l is public).  The site hosting the archives
has Google AdSense advertisements, so now the hosting site is suddenly
making money off of someone else's copyrighted work.  Suddenly lost
revenue is very clear and has a concrete value.

Someone else is using Eudora Light to read their email and has to suffer
through advertisements rather than purchasing a full version.  An email
comes in that contains a full article, so they see Eudora's ad and read
the message.  Eudora benefits from the ad and receives income, but the
newspaper site receives no traffic and none of their ads are visited.
Ad revenue is cut, traffic is reduced, and the unauthorized copy is the
one generating income.

The 'fair use' (which I don't think is applicable anyhow) distribution of
the message suddenly has the potential for serious legal ramifications
against hosting providers and Web sites.  We people can argue fair use
until we're blue in the face, but if ibiblio.org was served with a notice
under the DMCA and the list was shut down would it have been worthwhile?

Chris

http://www.bonvivantnursery.com/                     Bon Vivant Nursery
http://www.hort.net/sHORTurl/                        Shorten your URLs!
http://www.hort.net/gallery/      3961 online plant photos and growing!
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