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Subject:

Copyrights and Fair Use

From:

Bill Ellis

Reply-To:

Maryland Birds & Birding

Date:

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:53:45 -0400

On the subject of copyright, this web site is useful in
determining what constitutes fair use of other people's material:

http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm#res
earch

A few highlights:

Works created after 1978 do not need to be published to be
protected against infringement.

Original works created after March 1, 1989 do not need a
copyright notice to be protected.

Personal use tends not to be infringement of copyright;
commercial use without permission or license is very likely to be
infringement.

Critique, commentary, or parody of original works tends to tip
the scale in favor of being fair use and not infringement of
copyright.

Creative works that are in the public domain are not copyright
protected.  Such works may be public domain because of laws (such
as, copyright has expired), or because they are not original
(like the telephone book).

Personal opinion:

I suspect that e-mails on the net at a server like MDOsprey are
owned by the individual writers.  Since the MDOsprey server does
not inject any commentary, and uses purchased software for the
arrangement and format of the e-mails on the internet, I think
use by other web sites of MDOsprey content requires permission as
a matter of common courtesy, not copyright.  MDOsprey seems to be
a complete compilation of e-mails submitted, so the originality
requirement for copyright protection may be missing.  The
enforced requirement for MD-specific e-mails, however, does
introduce some originality from Norm, the creator.  for example,
if Norm rejected overly wordy e-mails (like this one) before they
appeared, the original aspect of MDOsprey might be more apparent.

Bill Ellis
My brother is an attorney - but I did not ask him