On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 05:39:06PM -0500, Sam TH wrote: > On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 03:58:29PM -0400, James Miller wrote: > > Courts have construed the conveyance of coyprighted material and later > > attempts to revoke rights to "use" as unenforceable. In a case > > involving a company that did some special effects for a movie company > > that then failed to pay their bills, the court held the deadbeat company > > enjoyed a non-exclusive license to the copyrighted material. > > > > If people would like a cite I can supply it later. The parties were > > something like Cohen v. ?? Special Effects. I think it was a 9th > > circuit case. > > Another significant case, in the other direction, is the Salinger > case, in the 2nd Circut I believe, in which Salinger successfuly > prevented the publication of exceprts of letters he had written and > sent to other people, on the grounds that he held the copyright. > > The cite is Salinger v. Random House, Inc., 811 F.2d 90 (2d Cir.), > cert. denied 484 U.S. 890 (1987). > > The text is available at > http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/salinger.html > The key point in Salinger v. Random House is that the letters in question were unpublished works. Also, Hamilton signed a NDA with the two libraries that gave him the letters. One can hardly argue that a latter sent to a public mailing list is unpublished. -- Brian Ristuccia brian@ristuccia.com bristucc@cs.uml.edu
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