Several years ago, although I was publicly supporting Harlan Ellison’s lawsuit against AOL over internet theft of copyrighted material, privately I was expressing to him my concern that the case was unwinnable. That AOL was too big with too many lawyers. And that the case would be a devastating endurance test that would suck the health out of Harlan. And Harlan said to me, “There’s one thing you have to understand about me: I always win. Always.”
Ðámņëd if he wasn’t true to his word, as a reading of the info referenced below will prove.
http://www.authorslawyer.com/c-ellison.shtml
PAD
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I
And it’s not like it’s all that hard to find Harlan’s stuff in bookstores – you could walk into, say, B. Dalton, ask for “Deathbird Stories”, and expect to find it in stock…
Interstingly, it looks like Harlan didn’t win, but that AOL “settled”. Altho I did just skim the article, as I could care less about copyright.
But it sounds a lot like the RIAA, notice that they always settle rather than letting the cases get to court?
I’m glad he won the legal suit, but I always try to look at the ethics of the situation rather than the legalities.
There have been occasions where tapes have circulated among fandom — blooper reels, early MST3K, B5 episodes that aired in the UK before the US, etc. Legally, none of those is defensible. Ethically — I always ask, “what does the person who created it think?” MST explicitly said “keep circulating the tapes” in its closing credits. JMS had no problem with tapes jumping the Atlantic. Thus, I personally don’t see the problem with that (and most assuredly got a B5 season 2 final 4 tape in that summer).
When it’s something the author/creator *doesn’t* want circulated, then legalities aside, you shouldn’t do it. Several years ago, some idiot decided to post the entire text of the Okudas’ “Star Trek Chronology” to Usenet. A few people argued that “it’s just providing free publicity” — but most of them shut up when I had the chance to ask Mike Okuda and got back the answer “no, we’re not happy with this.”
Just my two cents — Harlan should’ve been able to walk away with this case a long time ago from an ethical POV. I’m glad he won in the end.
TWL
What is truly fascinating is that Harlan is paying back the contributions that were made for his attorney fees. To me, this indicates that the settlement is not simply for nusance value i.e AOL settling for what it would have paid its attorneys in legal fees to bring this matter to trial. David whipped Goliath again.
I’m glad to see Harlan, yet again, kicked some legal butt.
I’m also glad that, unless someone knows something I don’t, he didn’t have to mail any bricks or dead gophers to anyone this time around.
I’m GLAD Harlan won out, in the end. An INGENIOUS author, I am fairly sure that Harlan doesn’t NEED any help getting his work out to the masses.
Just MY 2 cents…
I’m happy that Harlan “won/settled”, but I don’t think I like the implications of this case.
Basically, he said that people used the internet to violate his rights; and as an internet service provider, AOL is responsible and liable for what is accessed in cyberspace.
Is this right? Does AOL ‘own’ Usenet?
Can somebody help me wrap my mind around this? ‘Cause as far as I can tell this is akin to me suing Ford for making the car that a drunk driver used to kill Grandpa.
Know what I mean?
And if we take this argument to the next level; can Federal and Local Governments sue AOL based on the fact that their users can use their services to access Pornography? (Or some other type of illegal activity, like God forbid, Liberal thinking!)
VERY valid points, red-Ricky! It also brings to mind: suing McDonald’s because you’re fat…suing tobacco companies because you have cancer…suing Remington Firearms because some thug used one of their weapons to kill your Dad…so I see, very well, what implications you’re talking about.
Red-rick, had you read the legal brief that was linked to, you’d have seen the basis of the complaint. In brief, AOL archived two weeks’ worth of every Usenet thread they linked – including the one with Harlan’s misappropriated work. When notified, they ignored him. One ignores Harlan Ellison at one’s own peril…
The original posters of the copyrighted materials might have a had a point about “getting his work out to new readers” — but only if they had posted only the first chapter. You know, the “crack” method — The first hit is free… the rest are gonna cost ya.
(This is not to say that I think it’s OK to illegally post someone’s work if you only post part of it just that if you are claiming to just be trying to “get the work out” you don’t need to use the whole thing — if it’s good, just a taste will do.
The original posters of the copyrighted materials might have a had a point about “getting his work out to new readers” — but only if they had posted only the first chapter. You know, the “crack” method — The first hit is free… the rest are gonna cost ya.
(This is not to say that I think it’s OK to illegally post someone’s work if you only post part of it just that if you are claiming to just be trying to “get the work out” you don’t need to use the whole thing — if it’s good, just a taste will do.
Pirating is wrong… but holding service providors accountable is worse. It’s a slippery slope that is going to help errode ALL fair use rights.
O & A & Harlan Ellison always win in the end.
…sorry.
This is the first time I have seen USENET in a case, and it is about time. When used to its fullest capability ANYTHING & EVERYTHING can be found and downloaded faster and more conveniently than any other Internet service out there. A friend and I were speaking about it as the dark-underbelly of the Internet that no one wants to complain about because no one knows how to use it. For online downloaders it is like browsing through Best Buy where you can come across any CD, movie, application, game, book or even comic-run and have it faster than you could go to your local store to buy it.
It will be interesting to see if anything progresses on USENET after this or if the focus will stay on p2p.
Mike, I used to feel like you about who should be accountable. It is easy to look at this case and say that AOL shouldn’t be at fault. They didn’t post or encourage anyone to post pirated material. Lets assume that nobody at AOL downloaded the material. Essentially all they did was back up their servers to keep the posted material longer. But, at heart, while AOL didn’t commit the crime, they did hold the door open and allow the crooks to go in and pirate what they please. For that they do need to be held accountable. I will agree that they can’t monitor every single USENET newsgroup out there. But they can use some common sense. USENET used to be a wonderful service. Of course even the service it was intended for is now replaced by blogs and forums. But, before you talk about fair use, browse through USENET groups and find me one single binaries group that does not contain pirated material. A simple filter of these types of groups, or a simple filter of a max posting size on articles would solve the problem on their end and return the service to what it was intended. But, as long as they don’t take that effort, they are just as guilty.
The reason for Ellison’s suit against AOL and other parties was the fact that HE tried to get AOL to do something about the offending materials on a service that ran through AOL and they essentially told him to pound salt.
Never tell this guy to pound salt. He’ll pound it allright. Into your left ear.
He simply wanted a legitimate complaint addressed. They refused. Keep in mind about 95% of all writers who get published (if I remember correctly) don’t make enough money to live on, so they keep their day jobs. Pirating a writer’s work is not exactly stealing from the rich.
By the way, there are a number of contributors to the KICK fund who are telling Ellison, “Don’t bother about paying me back. It’s a gift.”
I don’t know the man and didn’t see the look on his face when several of his supporters told him this. He seemed to be very touched by this. It’s just as well I didn’t see his face. I hate to see a grown curmudgeon cry.
Chuck
(quote)Altho I did just skim the article, as I could care less about
copyright.(unquote)
If you don’t care about copyright, then you don’t care about ownership and protetcting ownership.
If you don’t care about ownership, then you shouldn’t mind if I (or anyone) should back a truck up to your home and empty it out.
How’s next weekend?
Jonathan,
I just wanted to clear the air. I did follow PAD’s link to authorslawyer.com and read what was summarized.
The press release given states and I quote:
“Ellison sued AOL in April 2000 over concerns that unauthorized copies of his and the works of other authors were being distributed through the USENET newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book, which, at that time, could be accessed through AOL’s and others’ services.”
See? They clearly stated that AOL’s fault lies in providing ACCESS. The article also talked about AOL being a conduit, but never about storing the files.
Basically, I never read the brief because it never occurred to me that a joint statement coming Harlan and AOL would misrepresent the facts of the case by failing to mention one of the main points of contention.
What you explained to me is an entirely different case. After all, “others’ services” don’t store USENET files. Then again I could be wrong.
I appreciate you setting me right; after all, the intent of my post was to find out what I was missing. But it’s not that I didn’t bother reviewing everything, it’s just that it never occurred to me that “accessing usenet files” was code for “storing usenet files”.
Skrinq, you show your ignorance boldly.
Copying something doesn’t steal anything. The original is still with the original owner. All the copier has is a copy.
You cannot “own” some that is not physical.
PERIOD
I am one of the contributors and I would rather have a tour of Ellison Wonderland (Harlan’s home) than my money back 🙂 If anyone can communicate this him it would be greatly appreciated.
Let’s just hope everyone here is just as supportive when parents start suing AOL or a Library or something, when their child uses the internet there to access pørņ, or a website the parent disagrees with (maybe even PAD.com).
Because that is what this lawsuit opens up. It puts the liability on the service provider for what bits of data the end users of that provider access. And that should scare everyone. How many people get the majority of their news and information from the internet? And how much will that number grow over the next few years? Now people can sue to have that information filtered? That scares the šhìŧ out of me.
Don’t get me wrong, I support Ellison’s right to get this resolved. But I would rather he sued the poster (most everything on usenet is traceable) which would do more to discourage people getting the data.
Because, end of the day, anyone who knows how to use usenet, can find alternate usenet providers for free, or $9.99 a month which backup the data for as long as a year. Even AOL users. So what did he accomplish besides making AOL censor content, and making some cash.
Jerry
That’s odd, I didn’t see mention of this on the news section of my AOL start up screen…
Copying something doesn’t steal anything. The original is still with the original owner. All the copier has is a copy.
Which is something they might otherwise have bought, or something the original author might not have wanted to get out.
You haven’t stolen anything physical, no, but you have most assuredly done a disservice to the author’s right to decide how and when his/her work is to be distributed.
Now, if you don’t think the author should have such rights that’s your call … but I think it takes balls to come out and say that on an author’s own site … and not in a good way.
TWL
Jerry,
Let’s just hope everyone here is just as supportive when parents start suing AOL or a Library or something, when their child uses the internet there to access pørņ, or a website the parent disagrees with (maybe even PAD.com).
I think the pørņ lawsuits have already happened, or are already in progress.
The “a website the parent disagrees with”, however, is way beyond the pale, and I don’t think Harlan’s suit opens the door to that in any significant way.
Harlan was trying to put a stop to something that was clearly illegal. A parent trying to keep their kid from seeing this site has no grounds other than “I don’t like it” — and unless said parent is a good friend of John Ashcroft, at the moment that’s not a viable reasons.
I’m as concerned as anyone about not wanting to limit the free flow of information. I just don’t think this lawsuit is doing anything in particular to harm it.
TWL
Tim,
“Which is something they might otherwise have bought”
How do we justify libraries then? This is a real question, not just trolling. I was thinking of this the other day. A given copy of the book probably get’s checked out 100 times or more correct? My local library, for example, owns 6 copies of IQ. If there are 1000 libraries out there, that’s 6000 copies, read 6000000 times. That means if you asume $7.99 a copy, then $47,892,060 was STOLEN from publishers and PAD, for just that one book. Unless you realize that people who check out the book either wouldn’t have bought it anyways, or may still buy it. The same could be said for someone who downloads the copy of the book.
I thought the copyright laws were better before the went and changed them recentlty. Used to be it was only copyright infringment if you made a profit off of it. Now anything that is typed or written is copyrighted, including this text I am typing now. If you copy and paste a reply, technically, I could sue you. Stupid laws, written for corporate interests…
Jerry
Tim,
“Harlan was trying to put a stop to something that was clearly illegal. “
Correct. But lots of illegal things happen over the net. Should AOL start filtering out websites? There are plenty out there that provide links to illegal content (warez, music, books, etc). Maybe they should start blocking ports to stop people using bit torrent, since people trade illegal stuff there. They could read emails, to watch for stuff there.
And again, at the basis what we are talking about, is holding an ISP responsible for what content their users access…illegal or not. That is scary. And the moment people realize they can make money suing ISPs for this kind of stuff, then everything will be up for grabs.
Jerry
Jerry,
How to justify libraries?
I believe libraries themselves pay a certain fee to the publisher over and above the price of the book, and that the publisher can set that fee according to how much business they think checking out will “take away”. (I do know that journal subscription fees for a library are steeper than individual subscriptions, for just that reason.)
Even if I’m wrong about that part of it, though, library use is something publishers choose to do in an attempt to increase interest in a particular book or author. I think that’s the key — it’s an agreement everyone enters into consciously and purposefully, not someone trying to sneak a free copy.
I quite agree with you that copyright can go out of control. I don’t think letting the “screw it, I want this and don’t care who it hurts” crowd have free rein is the answer, though.
TWL
Jerry,
And again, at the basis what we are talking about, is holding an ISP responsible for what content their users access…illegal or not.
But it’s NOT “illegal or not.” That’s your fear, and it’s a legitimate one, but it is not what Harlan’s particular lawsuit addressed. I think that’s a crucial difference — crucial enough that the slope isn’t slippery yet.
Don’t get me wrong — your scenario could happen, and I think all of us should be keeping eyes out to make sure it doesn’t. I just don’t think Harlan’s suit is grounds for yelling about the sky falling.
TWL
” I don’t think letting the “screw it, I want this and don’t care who it hurts” crowd have free rein is the answer, though.”
Just for the record, I agree with you 100% there. Just playing devils advocate a bit. that and this lawsuit still scares me a little.
Jerry
Bladestar, look up the concept of “intellectual property”.
Jerry, look up the “fair use doctrine”.
And AOL already filters out certain websites. Try accessing, say, xratedlist.com through AOL’s browser, without going through Google or something first.
Jerry,
I understand what you’re saying. However,I am heavily involved with libraries, so I can say almost with certainty that publishers and authors alike do NOT feel “ripped off” by library usage for the follwing reasons:
1.) As Tim stated, selling to libraries is something a publisher CHOOSES to do
2.) The price of a book being sold to libraries is generally spiked to offset the possible “lost business”
3.)A large number of library readers are very old, very young, or the poor. Each of these demograghics are among those least likely to actually buy a lot of books instead of reading them for free. But it could still be of benefit, since…
4.) By sampling different authors and different books, there is a chance many library patrons will eventually buy a book they liked reading so they can have their own copy and/or become a fan of an author
5.) If a publisher, especially a small one, can get in a library system, especially in a city like Philadelphia, that is a guaranteed number of copies sold.
6.) As library budgets keep getting cut, more and more books are bought from stores by local Library Friends groups or donated by individuals and businesses, who get a tax write-off, and who obviously had to buy them first.
4.)
Jerome Maida,
The only problem is, that doesn’t counter my first point, which is that I have a problem with the “Which is something they might otherwise have bought” reason for this lawsuit.
Someone had to buy the book in the first place (or the e-book) to put it online. Just like a library, the people who would download the e-book probably would not have bought the book, and those who never would have might by it because of their exposure.
I just never liked that reason, so that’s really the reason I brought up libraries. There are much other reasons, but lets not go confusing people who download e-books illegally with customers. They rarely are. The real reason for pursuing those suits is to keep the value of your book from becoming devalued.
Jerry
Question:
What about out of print or hard to find books — books that are of little interest to publishers — or a least not “worth” a 2nd printing?
How gray is the area here? If a “legit” copy can’t be found, and an illegal copy *can* be, can one justify downloading said work? One (not myself) could argue that the author was not being cheated out of any money as there is no legitimate way to order the book. No publisher is losing money since they are the ones not printing the book.
If one DID decide to download an out of print book, is there any way to re-imburse the the author?
Question:
What about out of print or hard to find books — books that are of little interest to publishers — or a least not “worth” a 2nd printing?
How gray is the area here? If a “legit” copy can’t be found, and an illegal copy *can* be, can one justify downloading said work? One (not myself) could argue that the author was not being cheated out of any money as there is no legitimate way to order the book. No publisher is losing money since they are the ones not printing the book.
If one DID decide to download an out of print book, is there any way to re-imburse the the author?
Copyright as it is applied to today is pure garbage.
I don’t recognize copyright. I recognize “creator” and think that should be maintained, but that’s it.
So much for a “free market” once you introduce copyright.
The library concept doesn’t infringe on the author’s copyright because the book they are lending is an authorized version.
However a photocopy of the book, freely given or sold, is a violation.
Think of the Library as a Blockbuster Video store. They can lend you copies of the movies they already own/bought that doesn’t mean you can burn a CD, video or DVD during the two or three days it’s in your posession.
I think most people are missing the fact that Harlan actually LOST his initial case since the court dismissed his suit.
His appeal, merely made the Ninth Circuit reverse the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case. Had the case gone back to court, it’s most likely that AOL would have been “held harmless ” and Harlan would have lost.
So yeah, AOL actually settled a “nuisance suit”. On the other hand, I think Harlan had a point, and all AOL had to do was delete the offending material off it’s servers and deny access to that particular newsgroup.
I glad the case was settled, but I think both parties won. Harlan may get some remuneration, but let’s say that AOL had lost, there was the potential for being sued out of existence by other writers and artists alleging similar damages.
Way to go, Harlan! I’ll have to pop my ol’ “Friends of Ellison” button on my lapel, grab my dog-eared copy of “The Glass Teat,” and drink a toast to writers everywhere.
Libraries buy the book and LOAN it out. It’s not for resale (until the big once-a-year or so used book sales). The library own the physical book, not the ideas or thoughts in the book. When you check out a book from the library, they library really doesn’t care if it’s ‘Catch-22’, ‘Izmadi’, or ‘Miesry’.
Posting someone elses work on the internet without permission is stealing their intelluctal copyright and using it without authorization. The unauthorized posting of copyrighted words or images on the internet is hurting possible future sales of said product.
Yes, Harlan Ellison may still own the ideas, but the posting of those ideas can hurt him financially. Have you ever looked up an artist’s web site? There might be thumbnails of their work available, but larger images generally have some sort of watermark or other image on them to prevent the “stealing” of the image. If you want a print or an original, you need to pay for it.
Movies are having an even harder time due to piracy these days. I read a news story (sorry, don’t remember where) that stated that Soul Plane tanked at the box office. No, that’s not suprising. The blame for it tanking is the abundance of pirated DVD’s on the street the day the movie opened. This doesn’t hurt just the studios, it hurts the actors and crew members that have a stake in the production.
BTW, I now own a copy of a book of science fiction stories bought in a library sale. One of the stories in the book…Harlan Ellison’s original “City on the Edge of Forever”. If you’ve never read the original, it’s pretty darn good, and not suprising that it was changed so much for the show.
The previous copyright laws did *not* require that someone profit for it to be copyright infringement. Copyright is actually a pretty simple concept at its core, summed up in it’s name; control of the right to copy a work. And I successfully got a settlement once from a completely non-profit group which used my work (and I had an extremely strong case, since I’d specifically told them not to use it).
(quote)Copying something doesn’t steal anything. The original is still with the original owner. All the copier has is a copy.
(unquote)
balderdash.
Intelllectual property is property. Period.
Tell you what, how about if I ‘steal’ your name– it is not a “physical object.”
Tangibility has nothing to do with the legal interpretation of property. If it is not yours, don’t appropriate it.
As for copying, you wouldn’t mind if I copied your passport and substituted my picture for yours? You would still own the original, yet would apparently insist no violation or crime took place.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are confusing ‘patent’ with ‘copyright’ or even with ‘trademark’ — if not, then get a clue.
You cannot own non-tangible items.
A passport is a tangible items, not to mention a piece of official government identification, it’s not a “copyrighted” document.
You cannot own music, movies, or books, only the media they are on. Once you let another human being see/hear something you’ve written, you’ve lost control of it, it’s no longer yours alone.
Humans take whatever they perceive and make it part of themselves in one way or another. You can’t legislate that.
By the way, there is no “right to make a profit”.
You don’t have a “right to get paid.”
You have a choice, work for what your employer agrees to, or take a hike. When you you create music, movies, books, and release them into the public eye, they are out of your control at that point. It’s up to the buying public to decide what they want to spend their money on at that point. If there are those who buy something and then copy and post it, welcome to capitalism.
Although why anyone would want to read a novel from a computer screen… ughh, staring at the screen that long you’re just asking for a major headache…
To those who oppose what the person on USENET did because it allowed people to read Harlan’s work without reimbursing him in any way (i am not disagreeing this was wrong), what are your opinions about the fact that when bookstores have mass market paperback books that do not sell, they only have to tear off the front cover and return that rather than they whole book. Now its illegal to sell the book like that because the author does not receive money for it. However, it can still be read by anyone for free. This is similar to libraries because the publisher is ok’ing it, however there is no compensation that I am aware of.
Just curious as to what people think of this.
On another note, while I agree that the majority of people who pirate music, books, movies, whatever do abuse the system, I believe sometimes it can be good for the authors of such works. I don’t get Showtime and therefore miss series’ such as Dead Like Me. I downloaded a couple episodes because I was curious and enjoyed it so much that I bought the Season 1 DVD. And I intend to download the Season 2 episodes as they air, but will buy that DVD when it comes out as well. I know I am in the minority when it comes to this, and I tend to think that it is bûllšhìŧ (I apologize to anyone this offends) when the guy says he was trying to help Harlan out. I doubt that was foremost in his mind. But sometimes it does work out that being able to read/watch/listen to something for free, interests people in purchasing said work when otherwise they would not have. I am not defending anything. Just giving a different POV. Thank you.
“To those who oppose what the person on USENET did…what are your opinions about the fact that when bookstores have mass market paperback books that do not sell, they only have to tear off the front cover and return that rather than they whole book. Now its illegal to sell the book like that because the author does not receive money for it. However, it can still be read by anyone for free. This is similar to libraries because the publisher is ok’ing it, however there is no compensation that I am aware of.”
Actually, they are technically supposed to throw the book away or recycle it. That method is used to save the store from having to ship copies of the entire book back, and the publisher from having to store or trash them. The same system is/was used for returnable periodicals, including comics. But i know that at least some of them often end up going home with store employees. As for my opinion on that….
Well, i kind of feel about that the way i feel about bootlegs (including burned “mix” CDs) and pirated copies of out of print material. And that is, if you receive some of such – either as a gift, or by your own action (downloading, etc.) – then you have an obligation to “pay back” the creators of the work(s) in some way. The way i would do that is, for example, buying one of the CDs represented on the “mix” CD, or purchasing a legit copy of the out-of-print work if/when it comes back into print or, failing that, buying another work by that creator as a way to help make up for the loss. It ain’t much, but at least it’s something. (Of course, now a lot of authors with Websites now have PayPal or something similar, so in those cases you could make a direct payment to the author if it’s a book that’s involved.)
(On this point, i also agree with Greenbaum; pirated copies do have a place in promoting *certain* things. It’s when they are used as a way of not having to pay for originals that i take issue with them.)
Oh, and one question for Bladestar. So, by your logic, if i collected all your postings, sold them as a “Wit and Wisdom of Bladestar” e-book and pocketed the money, that’d be okay, right?
Brian
You cannot own non-tangible items.
So “identity theft” is a completely meaningless crime to you, then?
Seems to me that if you’re correct, you’d have no problem with someone posting your credit card numbers here and letting the rest of us go off on a spending spree. All we took from you is a number — that’s not tangible, right?
TWL
Or for something even more pertinent…so, it would be okay with you if someone, say, scanned in every page of PAD’s latest “Fallen Angel” TPB and posted it on the Web for download…right?
Brian
I have to admit that I’m torn between both sides. For the first time I actually agree with what Bladestar says, but I can also see the points made by others.
I guess I don’t have a problem with people sharing music files, movies, software, etc. However, I don’t think it is right for someone to download music, burn a CD and then turn around and sell it for profit.
That can work with the credit card number as well. As much as I’d hate you having it I don’t think it would be stealing for you to possess my credit card number. It is just a number. However, the instant you use it, sell it, or in anyway profit from directly taking money from me you’ve crossed the line.