Comments on: RSS and Copyrights http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130 The musings of a former patent agent who has gone to the dark side.... Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:18:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Inhouse Agent » On copyrights and RSS http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130&cpage=1#comment-381 Inhouse Agent » On copyrights and RSS Sat, 02 Sep 2006 02:06:34 +0000 http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130#comment-381 [...] Many thanks to Denise Howell for her thought provoking comments on a post a couple of days ago on copyright holder rights in the age of RSS feeds.  It definitely provided some more food for thought. [...] [...] Many thanks to Denise Howell for her thought provoking comments on a post a couple of days ago on copyright holder rights in the age of RSS feeds.  It definitely provided some more food for thought. [...]

]]> By: Denise Howell http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130&cpage=1#comment-378 Denise Howell Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:43:47 +0000 http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130#comment-378 There's an additional reason why this analogy doesn't fit closely enough to definitively QED the problem. With the free local pubication, the publisher is delivering a limited, predetermined number of its works, via sneakernet if you will, to a limited number of destinations that it selects. The works will sneakernet themselves away from those destinations, but not far, and their numbers will still be whatever the publisher dictated. With RSS, the work is going to destinations (and perhaps onward to other destinations) that are potentially unlimited in number, potentially an unlimited number of times, as long as the feed, server, and bandwidth are all in good order -- all at the behest of the rightsowner, who presumably knows this when s/he publishes the feed. There’s an additional reason why this analogy doesn’t fit closely enough to definitively QED the problem. With the free local pubication, the publisher is delivering a limited, predetermined number of its works, via sneakernet if you will, to a limited number of destinations that it selects. The works will sneakernet themselves away from those destinations, but not far, and their numbers will still be whatever the publisher dictated. With RSS, the work is going to destinations (and perhaps onward to other destinations) that are potentially unlimited in number, potentially an unlimited number of times, as long as the feed, server, and bandwidth are all in good order — all at the behest of the rightsowner, who presumably knows this when s/he publishes the feed.

]]> By: Denise Howell http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130&cpage=1#comment-377 Denise Howell Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:04:06 +0000 http://dscpatentlaw.com/wordpress/?p=130#comment-377 Hi IHA, Thanks so much for the kind comments and for engaging in this discussion. To address your point, there are some online differences that may come into play in this analysis. Just as search engines have successfully invoked fair use, implied license, and the DMCA (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004344.php), so ultimately might aggregators and other RSS re-users, particularly if their activities are salutary in nature (search makes the Web navigable; aggregation makes it manageable). The free/local/ad supported publication analogy came up in my comments and is the closest one I've seen, but it doesn't take into account that, on the Web, copyring is involved in *any* redistribution, including the kind that would be legal in your example. Hi IHA,

Thanks so much for the kind comments and for engaging in this discussion. To address your point, there are some online differences that may come into play in this analysis. Just as search engines have successfully invoked fair use, implied license, and the DMCA (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004344.php), so ultimately might aggregators and other RSS re-users, particularly if their activities are salutary in nature (search makes the Web navigable; aggregation makes it manageable). The free/local/ad supported publication analogy came up in my comments and is the closest one I’ve seen, but it doesn’t take into account that, on the Web, copyring is involved in *any* redistribution, including the kind that would be legal in your example.

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