Re: OT: Preserving Information

Making a personal copy is fair use. Quoting in the right context is fair use as well. Sending the copy of friends make that the copy is no longer personal. You're redistributing. Then it's no longer a personal copy - and the fair use clause doesn't apply.

Compare it with GNU software. You're allowed to do modify it any way you see fit. You don't have gave away the source to the modifications. It's your personal copy. However, as soon as you distribute it - even to someone you label as "a friend", the license kick in. It's no longer a personal copy.

As for your example about the Obscure Empire, I don't pretent to know better than the author whether something should be preserved or not. It's a slippery slope that I'm not willing to cross. I'm worried enough already what certain industries want to do regarding to copyrights - I don't think we should join hands and break down those laws from two sides.

Abigail

Comment on Re: OT: Preserving Information

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Re: Re: OT: Preserving Information by jbeninger (Monk) on Oct 09, 2002 at 19:09 UTC
I was basing the "redistribution" on the idea that you can lend a book to someone. As long as only one person's reading the content at any time, it's not copying. Of course, there's some copying going when dealing with computers, but only internally. In any case, the fine points of the law in a case like this are out of our hands (and probably haven't even been tried in course). But as far as ethics go, I see no problems.	[reply]
Re: OT: Preserving Information by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Oct 10, 2002 at 06:47 UTC
Does that mean that if Microsoft takes GNU software, modifies it, and "lends" the resulting binary to its customers, you don't see any problems when it comes to ethics? Abigail	[reply]