On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:06:56 +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:

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> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:25:13 +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:
>> 
>>> 	You can't reuse the material without explicit permission, even if
>>> it contains "free speech".
>> 
>> That depends.  If a news story runs, say, the text of an address to the
>> nation, the reporting agency doesn't "own" the text of that speech.
>> Similarly, if they quote someone saying something - even at length - it
>> may be useable without the permission of the reporting agency, because
>> it's not *their* text.
>> 
> 	Who said anything about needing the permission of the reporting
> agency? The permission you need is that of the original author. The fact
> that they allowed the agency to distribute the text has nothing to do
> with what *you* are allowed to do with the text, you may be allowed to
> redistribute it or not and the agency has no say in the matter (unless
> the author gave it to them).

It depends on the terms of the copyright that's in force.  There is such 
a thing as implied copyright (ie, it's not explicitly declared).

If I stand up at a local community council meeting and talk for 10 
minutes, there's no reason that a report cannot take what I've said, 
write it down, and publish it.  There have been cases (ISTR) where 
someone then took that reported text and used it and was sued by the news 
agency.  Right or wrong, I do recall hearing of things like this 
happening, even when the publisher didn't "own" the content.  I used a 
"news agency" example because it's a fairly common situation, and with 
AP's recent decision to sue people who quote more than 4 words from AP 
articles without *paying* them for the use of the quote, that was at the 
front of my mind.

> 	True, fair use is not strictly codified (in the US). However, I
> didn't claim it was and the established precedents correspond to what I
> described. Plus, the way "fair use" is defined is beside the point,
> which is: "fair use" has nothing to do with "Free software" and precious
> little to do with "Free speech".

<shrug>  The conversation evolved a bit.  When talking about similarities 
between Free (libre) software and Free speech, these ideas become 
germaine.  You can't talk about the similarities without talking about 
what they mean.

> 	In the minds of too many people, it is. And I was answering your
> comment saying that "they [GPL and Free Speech] didn't seem different to
> you".

Well, in discussing it here, my thinking evolved a little.  So shoot 
me. ;-)

>> it's about defining the word "free".  I think that's what confuses a
>> lot of people.  It's not an equation, it's an ideal.  It's that
>> difference between Libre and Gratis.

Jim

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