Re: Web application licenses
Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
>> Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> writes:
>> > 17 USC 101 and Articles 4 and 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty probably
>> > suffice. They definitely classify a network-provided application as
>> > public performance -- unless you believe that executing a program does
>> > not count as a "performance" of it, which to me sounds far out-there.
>
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 11:20:54AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> [quotes 17 USC 101 definitions of "performance"...]
>> In other words, it's very clear that my running postfix to send you
>> this message is not a public performance of postfix.
>
> It's very clear to me that "performance" and "public performance" are
> two different things -- cases of "public performance" being a subset of
> cases of "performance".
>
> It's also clear to me, from reading the bit of 17 USC 101 you quoted,
> that running postfix constitutes a performance, even if it's not a
> public performance.
That would be this bit?
To ''perform'' a work means to recite, render, play, dance, or act
it, either directly or by means of any device or process or, in the
case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to show its
images in any sequence or to make the sounds accompanying it audible.
Well, I'm not reciting, dancing, or acting postfix. I'm not rendering
it or playing it either, as far as I can tell. I don't even *see* its
code, which seems quite different from music I'm playing or a dramatic
work I'm rendering.
The motion picture/audiovisual phrase doesn't apply at all. And the
device-or-process bit doesn't help you, because unlike the case of
playing a CD or a player piano, I still don't see the output at all.
I do not perceive the work in any way.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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