[Previous] [Next] [Index] [Thread]

Re: Thanks for the downloading help!



> Making the page available by http does not implicitly wave the
> copyright....we all are just breaking the law every time we look at a
> web site.

You mean "waive".  And of course as you imply, that's completely
absurd.  Whether or not putting up a page for the universe to
read implicitly waives some of the rights that an owner has under
the copyright laws would have to be settled in court.  I have a
hard time imagining any judge finding that it does not; I am
awfully, awfully certain (about as certain as I am that the
Sun will rise tomorrow) that when I surf to http://java.sun.com,
for instance, I am violating no laws.  Does your lawyer friend
*really* believe otherwise, or are you interpreting beyond what
she said?

One thing that I've learned in my encounters with the law is
that it's nothing like programming or logic: if a bunch of
reasonable-sounding premises lead to an absurd conclusion, the
legal system will find some way to avoid having the absurd
conclusion hold...

- -- -
David M. Chess                    | CAUTION: eye irritant
High Integrity Computing Lab      |
IBM Watson Research               | Not to be taken internally