Copyright

[Ron at]

I just forwarded the below attached post, and a couple other posts, from
this thread to our Lepidoptera list serve TILS-leps-talk located at
Yahoo!Groups.  Could this be interpreted by some law some place that
forwarding an email thread from a list serve archive violates a copyright?

Yahoo!Groups itself has a lot of fine print that I am sure most who form a
group there do not read all of.   Yahoo!Groups has a photos library
available to each individual group .  If I am looking at this correctly,
what we have is this.  Someone produces a copyrighted photo but then posts
this photo on the group site for others to see.  In the fine Yahoo print
does such a posting now give a copyright to Yahoo of same photo?

Hypothetical.  If I construct a web site that solicits the posting of
new/old scientific descriptions and have some fine print someplace that
says that such a posting constitutes a relinquishing of copyright by said
poster would that copyright now belong to me as a part of the whole web
assimilated file?   What kind of tangled webs are we headed for - or
already in?  It also looks to me like electronic on line material is in a
state of perpetual copyright.  It is copyrighted from current moment not
some specific date in the past.   If so, this is because it is always in
current publication vs. something printed on paper in 1963.   Thus, the
date of copyright  termination is continually being pushed into the
future - 95 years from the current tick of the clock.

In my mind copyrights are foremost about money.  Like patents, they assure
the 'inventor" that he will get his monetary due.  Artists and authors sell
their works and protect them via copyrights.  But for those whose stock and
trade is purely ideas (philosophers, theologians, scientists, etc) money is
often never a realization much less a motivation.  At the same time there
is a substantial amount of investment of one's life into what is produced
and even if no money is to be directly gained - credit via citation should
always be required.

However, ideas and scientific thought should be disseminated as widely as
possible.   There are some things that just need to belong to everyone.
They need to be seen as a product of humanity not a particular human.
Moses didn't copyright the ten commandments.  I consider my taxonomic
products available to the world - a publisher of same on the other hand,
will say - only if the world pays them first.

Donat Agosti wrote: International codes of nomenclature require that
taxonomic actions be published, and the data thus made available.  A great
deal of the information pertinent to those results is accessible only by
examination of the specimens involved, thus practically limiting access to
all but a few potential users.  Further, the assertion of intellectual
property rights by publishers, specifically copyright, effectively limits
the distribution of published information.
________________

When we formed our non-profit scientific org. the IRS wanted us to state
that our published products would (all) be copyrighted to protect the
organizations "property".   We said that we were not going to do that as we
are 1) required by the Code to make our research available (with or without
cost) and that 2)  we considered taxonomic scientific research to be the
property of the scientific community (science itself) not individuals.
Thus, unless otherwise and specifically stated our materials are not
copyrighted.  In some cases they are if we think there is a need.   But we
are not locked into a box on this.  The IRS approved our flexible position.

For example, on our TILS web site.  Almost all of our photos there are of
type specimens.  These are not available for reproduction on other web
sites or in other publications without permission.   We have given
permission in one case for a photo to also be reproduced on another web
site.   One other site asked to reproduce a few of our pictures and we said
no -- they did it anyway.  Now does one really want to press legal action
every time a copyright is violated - especially at such minor levels?

Ron Gatrelle
TILS president
Charleston, SC - USA
http://www.tils-ttr.org



----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson at MINDSPRING.COM>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: Copyright (was PDFs and tapeworm descriptions)


> On Tue, 14 May 2002 10:00:42 -0400 "Susan B. Farmer"
<sfarmer at GOLDSWORD.COM> wrote:
> >From an earlier edition of their web site I have the following
information
> >on the duration of copyright.
> >
> >        1. if the work was published before 1978, the copyright expired
> >           75 years from the date of publication *IF* the copyright was
> >           renewed -- otherwise the copyright expired in 28 years.
>
> Under the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Pub. L.
> 105-298, Oct. 27, 1998, this 75-year term has now been
> extended to 95 years.  See 17 U.S.C. § 304(b).
>
> Stephen Carlson
>
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson,
> mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
> "Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35
>