Intellectual property and copyright

posted by Jeff | Friday, January 30, 2004, 3:29 PM | comments: 1
This is fun. This webmaster of a small town newspaper got pissed because we deleted his post on CoasterBuzz.com that was promoting his site. Mind you, we've had that policy since the start, but whatever.

So he sends me e-mail and I tell him why, and he replies with all kinds of threats about how our summarizing and linking to his articles, years ago when his site was public and free, is copyright infringement. Naturally I explain to him the test of fair-use and how it obviously benefited him in the form of traffic and ad revenue.

Failing his ability to answer my challenge to point to a legally valid instance of copyright infringement, he bad mouthed me some more and said I was "dishonorable" and all kinds of nonsense. I replied by indicating he's not very good at forming parternships, his password protection on his site doesn't work, and I cc'd his publisher.

As someone who writes software for a living, I certainly appreciate the need for protecting intellectual property. Stealing music, software or whatever is wrong. It's also wrong to limit free speech where fair use is involved. If you're not familiar, fair use is protected under current case law and the USC with the rationale being that it benefits the public good in terms of facilitating public discussion and criticism, or disseminating information. That's why search engines can digest your Web site and it's OK.

This guy didn't get that, though his problem probably started with the fact that he wasn't getting his way (and he seriously overestimates the value of his content to the world at large). I used to work with small-town media people like that all of the time, in print, radio and TV. For types like that, they fail to see their role in the bigger universe. Not everyone has the impact of Peter Jennings or a NY Times columnist, though they'd like to think otherwise.

Anyway, it was kind of a funny/sad exchange. The Internet has been so good for the world in so many ways. Some have led to profitable businesses, others, especially from non-profits, have made significant impact on the world in terms of education and technology. Unfortunately, we'll probably need the EFF to continue keeping the oneline world a free exchange of information.


Comments

Kara

January 30, 2004, 9:54 PM # That's bad ass that you can fight back and show him what a dick he is like that. Kudos!! :oP

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