The public, however, does have an obligation to pay for the products that they use. That is the only obligation though.
That's not entirely legally true.
Legally, the public has the obligation to abide by any contract that is made with them as long as it doesn't violate federal/state/local law.
If I want to release any copyrighted material for free, the public has no obligation to pay me a dime. They do have an obligation to obey the copyright license, which is how Free Software works.
Anyway, Federal law also dictates fair use rights. If I let me friend borrow a tape/CD, and my friend listens to said tape/CD - we aren't violating copyright and breaking the law... we're exercising fair use rights as they are dictated by federal law.
It's a LOT more complex than just minimizing the situation to a "pay-per-play" type of relationship. That is not a valid representation of copyright law and is a very dangerous perversion of it's intent.
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Re:Here we go again
Posted by: fitzix on July 19, 2002 11:03 AMActually, the corporations have...
The public, however, does have an obligation to pay for the products that they use. That is the only obligation though.
That's not entirely legally true.
Legally, the public has the obligation to abide by any contract that is made with them as long as it doesn't violate federal/state/local law.
If I want to release any copyrighted material for free, the public has no obligation to pay me a dime. They do have an obligation to obey the copyright license, which is how Free Software works.
Anyway, Federal law also dictates fair use rights. If I let me friend borrow a tape/CD, and my friend listens to said tape/CD - we aren't violating copyright and breaking the law... we're exercising fair use rights as they are dictated by federal law.
It's a LOT more complex than just minimizing the situation to a "pay-per-play" type of relationship. That is not a valid representation of copyright law and is a very dangerous perversion of it's intent.
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