Monster Media 1994 #1/monster.zip/monster/FREQ_QA/CRTFAQ.ZIP/PART.5

Text File | 1994-01-06 | 12KB | 276 lines

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.3)
Part 5 - Further copyright resources.

Copyright 1994 Terry Carroll
(c) 1994 Terry Carroll

Last update: January 6, 1994.

This article is the fifth in a series of six articles that contains
frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to copyright law,
particularly that of the United States.  It is posted to the Usenet
misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, misc.int-property, comp.patents,
misc.answers, comp.answers, and news.answers newsgroups monthly, on or
near the 17th of each month.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209],
in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ, files part1 -
part6.  If you do not have direct access by FTP, you can obtain a copy
via email: send a message to [e-mail] with the following
lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1994 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is not
removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial
documents without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available
for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file
transfer on the Internet.  Permission is further granted for this
document to be made available for file transfer in the data libraries of
associated with the following Compuserve Information Services fora: the
Legal Forum, the Desktop Publishing Forum, the Show Business Forum, and
the Ideas, Invention & Innovation Forum.  This article is provided as is
without any express or implied warranty.  Nothing in this article
represents the views of Santa Clara University or of the Santa Clara
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at the
time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only and does
not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require legal advice, you
should consult with a legal practitioner licensed to practice in your
jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and is
currently (January 1994) a student in his final semester at Santa Clara
University School of Law, is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara
Computer and High Technology Law Journal, and is seeking employment as an
attorney.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for improvement to
this FAQ, please send them to one of the following addresses, in order of
preference:

  [e-mail]
  [e-mail]

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, but
please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions that are
accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of the
FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for this part).

Part 5 - Further copyright resources.

5.1) Where can I get more information on copyright?
5.2) What materials related to copyright are available on the
     Internet?


5.1) Where can I get more information on copyright?

The U.S. Copyright Office General Information Package 118 provides
general information on copyright law.  Copyright Office Circular 2,
"Publications on Copyright," provides a complete list of publications
relating to copyright which are available from the Copyright Office.

These materials and many others may be ordered (generally free of charge)
by calling the Copyright Office Hotline at 202-707-9100 and leaving a
voice mail message.  Call the Hotline only if you already know the number
of the publication you want.  If you don't know the publication number,
the Copyright Office maintains a prerecorded information line at 202-707-
3000.  This line provides an automatic voice mail attendant that provides
information according to responses presented from a touch-tone keypad.
Much of the information in section 2.6 was obtained from this information
line.

The book "Intellectual Property in a Nutshell," by Arthur R. Miller of
Harvard Law School and Michael H. Davis of Cleveland-Marshall College of
Law (West Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-314-75738-4), provides a fine
introduction not only to copyright law, but also to patent and trademark
law.  It's typically available from college or law school bookstores for
about $15.

The authoritative secondary source for information on copyright is the
five-volume loose-leaf opus, "Nimmer on Copyright."  Originally written
and maintained by the late Professor Melville Nimmer and now maintained
by his son, David Nimmer, this is the most respected source of copyright
information, short of the texts of the statutes, regulations, and cases
themselves.  Nimmer is frequently cited by courts, including the U.S.
Supreme Court, as an authority to justify their opinions.  I've been
surprised to find short essays on even the most obscure copyright
questions (e.g., whether a food recipe is subject to copyright).  I
heartily recommend it as an initial source for research.  It is, however,
a bit dense for casual reading.

Several readers have recommended L. Ray Patterson & Stanley W. Lindberg,
"The Nature Of Copyright" (1991), ISBNs 0-8203-1362-9 (paperback) and 0-
8203-1347-5 (hardback).  Patterson and Stanley reportedly argue for a
broad interpretation of a user's rights in a work, and a more narrow
interpretation of the right of the copyright holder.  Be aware that this
interpretation may or may not match the law of your jurisdiction.

In preparing this FAQ, I consulted the casebook that was used in my
Copyright class in Fall of 1991 at Santa Clara University School of Law:
Joyce, Patry, Leaffer and Jaszi, "Copyright Law, Second Edition" (1991),
ISBN 0-8205-0115-8.  Like most casebooks, it contains edited versions of
most of the landmark decisions in the law, including most of the cases
that are cited in this FAQ.  It's not for beginners, but it's well-
written, and often contains illustrations of the works being discussed in
the cases (a very useful feature, since copyright questions often turn on
questions of similarity or originality that can only be determined by
seeing the work).  The book's best features are a good review of the
history of copyright, an excellent description of the international
treaties covering copyright, and a detailed bibliography at the end of
each chapter.  An unfortunate feature is the index, which is not the best
organized, and often provides incorrect page numbers (perhaps because of
the editors' hurry to include the Feist case that had been decided only a
few months before the book was in stores).

Nolo Press publishes two books on copyright for the lay reader: "The
Copyright Handbook: How to Protect and Use Written Works," by Stephen
Fishman, ISBN 0-87337-130-5 ($24.95) and "How to Copyright Software," by
M.J. Salone, ISBN 0-87337-102-X ($39.95).  My knowledge of these books is
limited to the entries in the catalog, but Nolo Press generally enjoys an
excellent reputation for publishing accurate and understandable books on
law.  Nolo's telephone number is [phone].


5.2) What materials related to copyright are available on the Internet?

The following is a list of materials relating to copyright that I have
been able to verify are available on the Internet.

STATUTES:

 - FATTY.LAW.CORNELL.EDU -

Most portions of the current copyright law have been made available by
Cornell University.  To review the statute, enter the command

  telnet fatty.law.cornell.edu 8210

and sign on with a user ID of "www."  No password is necessary.  This
will allow you to use the World Wide Web software to navigate the
copyright law.  It also includes access to the Berne Convention.

TREATIES:

 - THE MULTILATERALS PROJECT -

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy maintains the Multilaterals
Project, an anonymous ftp site with a number of multilateral treaties, at
jade.tufts.edu.  This archive includes versions of both the Berne
Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention.  The treaties are in
directory /pub/diplomacy.  The following files are of particular
interest:

  README - A one-page description of the Multilaterals Project, by Peter
Stott, its director.

  INDEX - An index of all the treaties and other documents available from
the project.

  BH006-1971.txt - The 1971 Paris text of the Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

  UNTS11850.txt - The 1967 Stockholm text of the Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.  The United States is not a
party to the this text.

  UNTS13444.txt - The 1971 Paris text of the Universal Copyright
Convention.

In addition, The Berne Convention may also be viewed via telnet to
fatty.law.cornell.edu as noted above, under "STATUTES."

OTHER RESOURCES:

 - THE CNI-COPYRIGHT MAILING LIST -

The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) sponsors CNI-Copyright, an
Internet mailing list devoted to copyright issues.  To join, send a
message to [e-mail] with a single line of text in the body that
says:

 SUBSCRIBE CNI-COPYRIGHT your name

If that doesn't work, send a message to [e-mail] (Craig Summerhill)
and ask him to manually add you to the list.  After joining, messages may
be sent to the list at [e-mail].

Archives of the CNI-COPYRIGHT list are available and may be searched
online via telnet.  To access them, telnet to a.cni.org, login with the
ID "brsuser" (no password is required), and follow the instructions
presented.  CNI-COPYRIGHT archives are in the COPY database.

CNI is a not for profit corporation and is a joint project of the
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), CAUSE, and EDUCOM.  It promotes
the creation of and access to information resources in networked
environments in order to enrich scholarship and to enhance intellectual
productivity.

 - COPYRIGHT GUIDE FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS -

FTP site moink.nmsu.edu (128.123.4.58) has a repository, /pub/rec.photo,
for files related to photography.  Among the files contained in this
directory is the Copyright Guide For Photographers, produced by the
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc.  While the Guide is
particularly oriented towards photographers, much of the information it
provides will be of use to anyone interested in copyright.  The file
asmp-copyright-guide is an ASCII version of this document.  A TeX version
is also available, in asmp-copyright-TeX.tar.z.

 - USENET NEWSGROUPS -

There are several newsgroups that from time to time discuss copyright
issues.

misc.legal: the main newsgroup covering legal issues, including copyright
law.

misc.legal.moderated: A moderated analog to misc.legal, but moderated,
and probably with a higher signal-to-noise ratio as a result.

misc.int-property: Discussions of intellectual property; copyright,
patent, trademark and trade secrecy, and their alternatives.

misc.legal.computing: Legal issues related to computers.  Copyright and
patent issues predominate.

comp.patents: Moderated newsgroup discussing issues related to computers
and patents, including software patents.  The newsgroup is moderated by
[e-mail] (Peter Treloar).  Please note that the focus
of this group is more on patent law than copyright law.

comp.software.licensing: Trends, practices, and techniques in software
licensing.

gnu.misc.discuss: Discussions in this group frequently include issues of
software patents, copyright, and "copyleft."