On Sun, 10 Dec 2000 david.goldstein§nic.at wrote:

> Hi all
>  
> I received the email below from an attorney from internet.com following
> posting my Internet news I compile to the Domain Policy mailing list, which
> is rather amusing. They don't appear too happy with the free publicity I
> give them!!!
>  
> Cheers
> David

Hi David, some points for Internet.com to note.
(they obvioulsy have someone on this list feeding
them your posts - shame - thats reproduction in itself
isn't it?).

1. You do yourselves a diservice as the only response
   to Davids posts is to generate a hit back to Internet.com
   to an item of interest.

2. Davids posting of an internet address (url) where an
   article can be found is *not* an infringment of copyright
   on that item. 

3. In anycase when a particular use of a copyrighted item
   comes within the legal definition of 'fair use' then
   the copyright owners permission is not necessary -
   although in this case where a reader is being directed
   directly to the source copyright *is* being acknowledged.

  Fair use includes:

   "Quotations or excerpts in a review or criticism for
    purposes of illustration or comment."

    "Summary of an address or article, with brief
     quotations, in a news report"

(source congressional committe report that accompanied
the US copyright act 1976).


4. Since cleary there is no breach on copyright involved
   here, is your business going so well you can affort to
   cut off valuable sources of referals? The service of
   'infomediaries' such as David  (a free service I might
   add) is valuable - so valuable in terms of my time that
   I for one would rather keep getting his feeds minus
   any items from Internet.com in preference to mindlessly
   visiting your site each day. I can't believe someone
   within your management group hasn't worked this out.

(if its your business model then the model is flawed)



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Doug Robb
Clarity Software Pty Ltd      http://clarity.com.au
GPO Box 763                   Phone: 0403 02 2527
Nedlands 6909                 Fax:   (618) 93867564
Australia                     email: doug§clarity.com.au
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