Re: Publishing and Linking - Some thoughts for Thursday

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 3:48 PM, ashok malhotra
<ashok.malhotra@oracle.com> wrote:
> I read the publishing and Linking draft again and I'm wondering if we can
> make statements like:
>
> - If you include copyrighted material you violate copyright.  If you link to
> it
> you may not violate copyright

This is a legal statement, so out of scope.  (and the first part isn't
always true. copyright law is very complicated; there are many
exceptions, and many variations across jurisdictions.)

> - If you include of link to illegal material you can the prosecuted for
> "aiding
> and abetting"

In the US at least anyone can be prosecuted for anything, if a judge
says the suit has merit, or something like that (IANAL). The legal
question is what the law implies and whether you've broken a law, and
again that's out of scope.

> - If you include or link to seditious material you can be prosecuted by the
> prevailing government

Ditto

> - If you have a copyright to printed material that carries over to its
> electronic form

This may be true, but again it's a matter of law, thus out of scope.

I think the statements we should make would all have the form:

*If* a law, contract, court, government, treaty, or any other source
of legal force attempts to prohibit or limit X, that would be in
conflict with practice Y, which is part of what the intended and/or
accepted purpose of the technology.

That is, the claims of the document should all be if/then/else,
without assuming or claiming anything at all about what the law
actually *is*, i.e. whether X is restricted or not.

> Also, Best practice 1 says "Legislation that forbade transformations on
> unlawful material would similarly limit the services that service providers
> could provide."  I don't know what that means

This statement has the right form. Maybe the kind of situation where
this might apply is where the holder of a copyright (or other similar
restriction right recognized by law) licensed copying their web page,
subject to it not being transformed (e.g. the ND term of CC-*-ND-*
licenses). If this license term were upheld against the operator of a
transforming proxy, the operator (and all similar providers) would
have to discontinue *all* transforming services, even when the
transformation isn't prohibited, since figuring out whether such a
license term would apply is "AI complete".

To make this example work one would have to mention judgments as well
as legislation. This probably applies throughout.

Jonathan

> --
> All the best, Ashok

Received on Wednesday, 20 June 2012 00:38:28 UTC