Articles

[Rod Clark]

> There are many costs to maintaining freedom on the web and
> SCN should not be afraid to take on their share of them, nor
> to generate publicity from same.

Doug, 

Whose freedom? People who hope they can make a living creating
things, or parasites who refuse to respect anything at all
about the idea of copyright? "Fair use" has been a gray area
since before people started using ditto fluid and mimeograph
stencils. But reprinting the Times articles in their entirety
(while conveniently omitting the copyright notices) isn't a gray
area. It's a violation of copyright, and it falls under the
"what you can get away with" rule instead of the "fair use"
rule. 

I'm disappointed that people at SCN seem to consider this a
freedom issue. It's nothing but stealing people's intellectual
property whole (the work by which they make their livelihoods),
which is what copyright laws were first enacted to keep
scoundrels from doing a few centuries ago. 

Promoting the complete and unmitigated theft of intellectual
property isn't what SCN should be about, although promoting
limited and reasonable fair use of intellectual property is
something that SCN could do. 

Keep in mind that each Information Provider on SCN has a
copyright in the material it publishes, unless it specifically
waives that right. (Eat the State! and a few others do waive
their copyright, by the way. Feel free to redistribute their
material.)

Rod Clark
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