Darren New schrieb:
> Oh, sorry. Reading it again, I thought it said "structure" and not 
> "building".  So buildings can be copyrighted but not bridges? Odd.

That would appear to be so indeed.

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>> IMO once you make something available to the public (ie they can just see 
>> it for free with no restrictions) then you can't really do much about 
>> people copying it.
>
> Of course you can. You can sue them for copying it.

Can you really make something that is visible to the public and then sue 
them for taking photos of it?  That seems bizarre.  *IMO* if you put 
something on display for the public to see you have no right to stop people 
taking photos and doing what they want with those photos.

> Heck, you think broadcast TV shows aren't copyrighted?

Oh I know they are, but *IMO* if you give something to the public you 
shouldn't expect to be able to keep control of it after that.  I mean if you 
publically broadcast *for free* to the whole population some TV show, 
doesn't it seem a bit wrong that two weeks later you then go and try to sue 
someone for making a copy?  Anyway I don't think that happens, at least in 
Europe a lot of the major TV stations seem to putting online all their 
previous programs, so you can do it totally legally now without resorting to 
bitTorrent.

> That would be license law, not copyright law. That's not even the same 
> jurisdiction in the USA.

But I think if the person has explicity agreed to some condition it is 
easier to prosecute them, rather than having to get involved with whether 
what they did actually broke copyright law or not.

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scott schrieb:
> Can you really make something that is visible to the public and then sue 
> them for taking photos of it?  That seems bizarre.  *IMO* if you put 
> something on display for the public to see you have no right to stop 
> people taking photos and doing what they want with those photos.

Well, it's not /that/ far-fetched: You're carrying your face around all 
day in public, too - still, if anybody wants to publish a photograph of 
that particular face taken in public, strictly they'd still need your 
agreement.

> Oh I know they are, but *IMO* if you give something to the public you 
> shouldn't expect to be able to keep control of it after that.  I mean if 
> you publically broadcast *for free* to the whole population some TV 
> show, doesn't it seem a bit wrong that two weeks later you then go and 
> try to sue someone for making a copy?

Now, imagine a simger-songwriter, doing a beneficial puplic gig 
somewhere. Would that entitle people to just copy his songs and not pay 
him any royalties?

Also note that although TV stations don't charge the public for their 
broadcasts, they do charge for it in a sense: They get their money from 
companies advertising in the breaks and between the shows. So they're 
not really giving away stuff for free - they're making money out of it.

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scott wrote:
> Can you really make something that is visible to the public and then sue 
> them for taking photos of it?  That seems bizarre.

Can you really give software away for free and then sue someone for not 
providing the source with the object code?  Can you really broadcast a movie 
over radio waves then sue someone for selling tapes they made of the broadcast?

> Oh I know they are, but *IMO* if you give something to the public you 
> shouldn't expect to be able to keep control of it after that.

Well, if you're arguing about "should"s rather than "can"s, I have no comment.

>> That would be license law, not copyright law. That's not even the same 
>> jurisdiction in the USA.
> 
> But I think if the person has explicity agreed to some condition it is 
> easier to prosecute them, rather than having to get involved with 
> whether what they did actually broke copyright law or not.

Sure, but then we're no longer talking about copyright. Indeed, having a 
copyright on something can actually *reduce* the things you can sue over. 
For example, if you copyright a picture, then have a contract that someone 
signs before you let them see it saying they're not allowed to do something 
with it that fair use allows, that part of the contract is unenforcable. (Or 
at least was before DMCA - now I don't know.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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Darren New schrieb:
> Sure, but then we're no longer talking about copyright. Indeed, having a 
> copyright on something can actually *reduce* the things you can sue 
> over. For example, if you copyright a picture, then have a contract that 
> someone signs before you let them see it saying they're not allowed to 
> do something with it that fair use allows, that part of the contract is 
> unenforcable. (Or at least was before DMCA - now I don't know.)

That appears to make no sense to me, as copyright /always/ exists on a 
copyrightable work.

Maybe the mechanism is as follows:

(1) You officialy /register/ your copyright, which requires you to 
publish the work (in the register).

(2) From that publication, anyone can freely exercise "fair use" rights.

Versus:

(1) You refrain from officially registering your claim to the copyright

(2) Instead of making the work /publicly/ available, you only present it 
to people willing to waive their rights to "fair use".

(3) If they nonetheless copy the work without your consent, they 
automatically make their access to the work illegitimate; and as "fair 
use" copying requires legitimate access to the work, they're screwed.

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clipka wrote:
> That appears to make no sense to me, as copyright /always/ exists on a 
> copyrightable work.

The laws have changed over the years. Before the Bourne convention, for 
example, this was not a true statement. You had to actually put a copyright 
mark on the work for it to be copyrighted.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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On Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:17:03 +0200, "scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:

>Can you really make something that is visible to the public and then sue 
>them for taking photos of it?  That seems bizarre.  *IMO* if you put 
>something on display for the public to see you have no right to stop people 
>taking photos and doing what they want with those photos.

That's what I thought.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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> Can you really give software away for free and then sue someone for not 
> providing the source with the object code?

Assuming it was completely for free (ie you didn't make them sign or agree 
to some specific license) then I hope you can't sue them.

> Can you really broadcast a movie over radio waves then sue someone for 
> selling tapes they made of the broadcast?

Again, assuming the public are legally allowed to receive that radio 
frequency freely, then that transmission is already "released" to the 
public.  You shouldn't be then allowed to try and control what the public 
does with your transmission.  If you want to control your work, don't 
release it for free to the public.

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scott wrote:
>> Can you really give software away for free and then sue someone for 
>> not providing the source with the object code?
> 
> Assuming it was completely for free (ie you didn't make them sign or 
> agree to some specific license) then I hope you can't sue them.

I don't have to agree to any license at all to obtain GPL software. It is 
completely free for me to obtain it.

> You shouldn't be then allowed 

There's that word "should" again.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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scott wrote:
> If you want to control your work, 
> don't release it for free to the public.

I guess you lose your copyright if you give your book to the library to loan 
out?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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