Re: Xpdf fuckware
On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 02:28:47PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 03:15:26PM -0300, Henrique M Holschuh wrote:
> > IMHO, the patch should, as others said, pop-up a window notifying the user
> > that the autor of the document requests that such an operation should not be
> > done, and that proceeding with the operation anyway might be in violation of
> > copyright rights.
>
> Since opinions are being solicited, I'd like to add my support for this
> compromise. Since I'm an armchair lawyer I'm happy to help out with the
> specific language. It will be important to make clear that the requested
> action only *MIGHT* be a violation of copyright. There is no way for a
> piece of software to know if someone is engaging in Fair Use practices or
> not. Hollywood's answer to that problem is to try and abolish the concept
> of Fair Use (in many cases, by pretending it doesn't exist). We want to be
> sure we don't reinforce that strategy.
I agree.
But I'm not in favour of having any legal language in the putative
pop-up message, for two reasons.
1. Who's law shall be quoted? Copyrights vary across the globe.
"Fair Use" is a U.S. legal term, as I understand it, and there
is no reason to assume both the author and the reader are in the U.S.A.
2. Copyright exists independently of whether or not the author
chose to flip on those bits. The absence of "copy control" bits
does not mean that you are free to republish the work.
IMHO, the only reasonable interpretation of these bits is that they
are a request from the document's author to not do certain things.
That is all the message should say.
-Steve
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