Klarinet Archive - Posting 000929.txt from 1999/03

From: "Hiroshi Nagatsuma" <hiroshi@-----.jp>
Subj: RE: [kl] Copyright (was [kl] Gilbert and Sullivan parody)
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 23:38:05 -0500

Lelia:
Copyright is one of disastrous outputs of so-called civilization.Did Bach
insisted it? In computor operational softs,Free-BSD or Linux are now
prevailing with their copyWrites over Microsoft!
Hiroshi
-----Original Message-----
@-----.com>
@-----.org>
=93=FA=8E=9E : Wednesday, March 17, 1999 5:53 AM
=8C=8F=96=BC : [kl] Copyright (was [kl] Gilbert and Sullivan parody)

>The people who disagreed with me when I said that the reposting of "I A=
m
the
>Very Model of A Newsgroup Personality" was illegal argued their points s=
o
>vigorously that I'm afraid their opinions probably prevailed. A remark
made
>here on a different thread has now ended my debate with myself over whet=
her
to
>respond again to the copyright issue, at risk of angering those who want=
to
>hear only about clarinets. Although I hoped that the copyright attorney
who
>sometimes posts to this list might do so again, since he hasn't, I've
decided
>not to follow the "let the Wookie win" policy I generally prefer (to avo=
id
>unwinnable "yes it is / no it isn't / yes it is / no it isn't" battles t=
hat
>can go on forever), because it seems wrong to leave incorrect informatio=
n
>sitting unchallenged where it might lead well-intentioned people to put
>themselves legally and morally in the wrong.
>
>Someone here demanded that I apologize. No. I stand by my previous
message.
>If I'm wrong, then by all means prove it, by citing specific research th=
at
>members of the list can verify and replicate, not hearsay from casual
>conversations with people who are not specialists in copyright law. If
>someone proves me wrong, or if I find evidence that proves me wrong, *th=
en*
I
>will admit it and apologize.
>
>I'm not an attorney and can't give legal advice, and I'm not about to
re-hash
>the whole discussion over again, so I suggest that anyone who thinks I
was/am
>mistaken should read the copyright information Mark Charette has posted =
on
>www.sneezy.org. Also please search the Archives of this list, where the
topic
>of Internet piracy came up several times in 1998. The search words "fai=
r
and
>use" will lead to branching-off places in several directions where most =
of
>those discussions can be traced. The individuals who persisted in
erroneous
>beliefs never conceded, but I hope most people with common sense will be
able
>to tell who knew what he was talking about and who didn't. Consider the
>source. What's yours? Mine is the Library of Congress Copyright Office=
,
>which has a web site, lcweb.loc.gov/copyright. Anyone can go there,
replicate
>my research, and ask questions of the staff. I also did some of my
research
>on the phone, since the LC is a local call for me. The Public Informati=
on
>Office is (202) 707-3000.
>
>Since several points need specific clarification, I'll break the topic d=
own
>into more than one message to avoid excessive length. Please assume "IM=
HO"
>for all that follows. The fact that someone is a professional writer do=
es
not
>make that person an authority about copyright law. Far from it. As
Secretary
>and later as Vice-President of Washington Area Writers (a group that
includes
>both amateurs and professionals), in the late 1970s, I wrote the
>organization's newsletter and helped arrange for speakers. We made sure=
to
>invite a copyright attorney to speak at least once a year (we always cho=
se
a
>specialist, because a lawyer practicing in another area generally won't
know
>enough about copyright law to give trustworthy advice about it), because
the
>group as a whole was dead ignorant about copyright law.
>
>Since then, I've tried to keep up with the many changes in the law. It'=
s
>incorrect to say (as someone stated here) that an item posted anonymousl=
y
on
>the Internet automatically falls into the public domain. Copyright law
>applies to electronic transmission in fundamentally the same way that it
>applies to any other form of publication. Further, the law protects
>"Anonymous" publications the same as any other.
>
>The underlying reason for this protection is that true and absolute
anonymity
>is almost nonexistent. To take only the case of comedy writing, for
decades
>among small press writers, fake anonymity has been a wink-nudge way of
>claiming (or admitting to!) authorship of something really silly while w=
e
pose
>as Terribly Serious and Pompous and Above All That. It's a way of makin=
g
fun
>of ourselves, and *in its proper context*, this sort of thing is always
>obvious. In fact, I did it right here on this list several months ago,
with a
>lyric that began, "This is a mess!" to the tune of Beethoven's Fifth. I
>posted it as a tag under my signature. Instead of a byline, I added a n=
ote
>that the author was "in hiding" or something like that. I don't imagine
>anyone seriously thought somebody other than I wrote "This is a mess!" =
For
>the record, no, that piece of fluff is not the sort of thing I bother to
>monitor grimly on the 'Net. I hope I'm not quite that big a horse's
>ass...yet. Give me time. But I only wish I had written anything half a=
s
fine
>as that Gilbert and Sullivan parody; and if I had, I would certainly
protect
>my rights to it. I strongly suspect that in context, "I Am The Very Mod=
el
of
>A Newsgroup Personality" appeared in close proximity to the author's nam=
e
in
>such a way that the connection was unmistakable. Out of context, that
>connection is lost and the work appears to be truly anonymous -- unless =
of
>course it reappears in close proximity to someone else's name, as it did
here
>on this list, in which event the re-posting looks like a plagiarism, as =
I
said
>at the time. I don't mean to sound gratuitously insulting and I fully
accept
>that the person who did the re-posting on this list didn't intend to
>plagiarize, hadn't seen the original context, whatever it may have been,
and
>didn't understand the convention of fake anonymity, but for future
reference,
>when you see a humorous "pome" floating around the 'Net without a byline=
,
it's
>safe to assume that there IS such a context lost in cyberspace somewhere.
>
>I wrote my previous message under the (obviously erroneous) assumption t=
hat
>people on the 'Net generally understood this running joke. I mean, I
didn't
>think anybody here seriously believed that my cat wrote the anti-clarine=
t
>jeremiad signed by "Shadow" (although I did notice that she subsequently
>exchanged a couple of e-mails with a cat named "Fluffy"....) It's also
common
>for someone to post something anonymously, let people guess who wrote it=
,
then
>'fess up later. It's business as usual among small press and online
writers,
>even fairly well-known ones, such as Darrell Schweitzer. He's co-editor=
of
>_Weird Tales_ and author of several novels and collections, along with m=
ore
>than 200 published short stories and Yog knows how many essays and poems=
,
as I
>know to my cost because I'm his official bibliographer. Many of his
sillier
>parody lyrics, "pomes" and such originally came out pseudonymously or
fake-
>anonymously. Sorting them all out is proving to be an enormous pain in =
the
>brain. He self-publishes booklets of his lyrics and "pomes" under the
imprint
>of "Zadok Allen, Publisher" and writes the back-cover blurbs himself. Y=
es,
he
>does puff himself liberally (in context, it's obvious this is a joke, of
>course) with words like "clever" (to answer the angry retort from someon=
e
who
>said someone would hardly refer to her own writing that way) and all sor=
ts
of
>other blurb-blab. Spoof printers are commonplace, too: Zadok Allen was=
an
H.
>P. Lovecraft character who came to an extremely bad end.
>
>Unfortunately there may be a less benign explanation for how the Gilbert
and
>Sullivan song got loose. Posting copyrighted material without permissio=
n
as
>an "anonymous" contribution in an attempt to conceal the piracy from the
>rightful author is an old trick, too, and was already commonplace in the
>mimeographed fanzines I subscribed to as a kid in the 1960s. (That's wh=
y I
>monitor transmissions of my own work by searching for key phrases, not b=
y
>searching for my own name.) As someone pointed out, no, I don't know wh=
ere
>the Gilbert and Sullivan parody song originated. Fine -- Does anyone he=
re
>know? Every posting of it I've seen has come from someone who got it fr=
om
>another site where someone else posted it who also got it from another
site.
>We don't know what attribution (if any) appeared on these verses the fir=
st
>time "someone" published them. We don't know whether the original
publication
>was copyrighted or not.
>
>Until someone can cite the *first* time the Gilbert and Sullivan parody
>appeared (anywhere, not just online), we must *not* assume it's in the
public
>domain, even if the author has never publicly revealed his or her identi=
ty.
>Parody is extremely difficult to write as well as those verses. That's
>professional-level, publishable writing and therefore I think it's wise =
to
>assume that the author is a pro. Since pro writers rarely release our w=
ork
>into the public domain, I must further assume that this author didn't
>deliberately abandon his or her copyright, unless or until someone
>demonstrates otherwise.
>
>For all these reasons, the very fact that the Gilbert and Sullivan song
bears
>no byline convinces me it probably IS copyrighted. Today there's no bet=
ter
>way to attract attention than by pretending to hide. Look at all the bu=
zz
>Random House got out of publishing _Primary Colors_ by "Anonymous" (with=
an
>obviously pseudonymous copyright claim by "Machiavelliana") in 1996. Jo=
e
>Klein's authorship was such a poorly-kept secret that policy wonks and
writers
>in the Washington, D. C. area started batting his name around well befor=
e
the
>review copies went out. Go ahead, try to convince the attorneys for Ran=
dom
>House that "Machiavelliana's" copyright claim was invalid because the na=
me
>printed on the colophon page was a joke!
>
>In Part II, I'll talk about why I think any of this matters. You'll
probably
>be glad to know that Part II will be shorter....
>
>Lelia
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>"Being absolutely positive is nothing but being wrong at the top of your
>lungs."
> --Dad
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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