Msg: 6521 *Conference*

05-09-96 15:30:38

From: RON WIESEN

To : RICHARD HANSON

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #6513 (PUBLICATIONS)

Copyright is good for "X" period of time. Unfortunately X is not a specific
value.  Copyright is good for the lifetime of the author, plus a bit more and I
don't remember exactly how much is that bit.  Perhaps you were thinking of
Patent lifetime where "X" is 17 years, period, and only a handful of patents
ever received a second 17 year extension.
 
For registered copyright (with the U. S. Copyright office in D.C.) it's easy to
get the name of the author if you know the Title of the work.  Then it's a bit
tougher to find out if the author is dead yet.
 
Regarding "underground plan of action", it is legal for the owner of a copy of
some "Title" to make more copies for the owners personal and exclusive use.
Because you own (bought) a copy of all those magazine "Titles" then you may
reproduce them and do so in another form like CD worm.  As far as distributing
a reproduction to another party, regardless of profit or non-profit, that
clearly is a No No and subjects you to Red Army attack.  There is one caveat
for registered copyright works that the law has and it might be the ticket.
The author may have granted free use in one or more categories - this is shown
on the copyright registration.  Such categories include: Braile for the blind,
10 or less copies for educators which must be destroyed within a year, and so
on.  I can check what all such categories are if you're interested.  Clearly a
Braile copy doesn't help us.  But one "educator" copy here on the BBS for no
more than a year might fit the letter of the law even if it stretches the
intent of the law.
 
Now for scanning and for searching via ASCII. There are "font scanners" that
export ASCII text from printed material. As long as the material stays with one
font, rather than switching to different typefaces or point height, this
scanners do well with just a bit of "teaching/correcting" by the operator at
the beginning of a scan session. Keep it in mind if you go looking for quotes
from firms.