Excelsior the book

Interesting FAQ, deals with libraries, but it contains these salient points:

Are there different types of infringers? It seems unfair to lump libraries with for-profit entities.
In addition to the garden variety infringement situation, there are two special categories of infringement. If the infringement was unintentional or the person infringing can show a good faith belief that he or she acted within the parameters of copyright law, he or she could be termed an "innocent infringer." On the other hand, if the infringement is done deliberately, and particularly if substantial profits were involved, the infringement could be termed "willful." It is important to know all three categories of infringement, since they have a significant impact on the damages available to the plaintiff in a case. More than likely, but certainly not always, a library would fall into the "innocent infringer" category.

Our library is part of a non-profit organization and our budget is small. Why should we be worried about liability for copyright infringement?
It is important to know that liability for copyright violation attaches whether or not the organization is for-profit or non-profit and in spite of the size of the operation or its budget. The ability to pay a judgment rarely factors into a decision on the merits in many civil cases. Although it may be the library which infringes, usually the parent institution will be held liable. And while many library budgets may be small, such as a hospital library, the hospital's overall assets may make the copyright action attractive enough to pursue. Bad publicity and a tarnished reputation may be just as costly for your institution as the money it would pay in damages.

You are right there of course. I dont mean to sound flippant or casual about this - IP is important to me also.

Tep so OTM it makes my eyes bleed.

And sure, Tep, if all you mean is that this particular thing isn't so bad at all, I'm completely 100% with you. I mean, I don't think I even posted to any of the threads in question, so clearly I'm here because of the bigger, principle-oriented picture.

The main reason I like having that copyright in place is because it makes it more likely that someone who actually does intend to profit off of the material -- and thus, more importantly, to put it someplace where anyone other than interweb mentalists are likely to see it -- will ask for permission first. I mean, at least DaCapo was nice enough to have us sign permissions for that Strokes thread before not-ever-paying us. Which may have something to do with my vehemence here: I've actually been making it an ongoing project to annoy them about my fifty bucks.

Anyway, here's my system: any person who'd bother looking over an ILX thread is a person I'm perfectly comfortable having read stuff I wrote here. If the material gets copied to other websites, well, in some cases I'm annoyed, but I expect it and don't care that much. But when material posted here moves in any direction toward appearing in an offline publication, especially one with a price tag on it, and of course at the extreme a widely-read one --- that's when I'd be likely to get uncomfortable. Because there's a significant change in context happening.

yeah, they probably wear trucker hats too.

Obvious answer: it ain't.

x-post, sue me.

Any precedent here means absolutely nothing. It's unenforceable, legally or socially. When it happens again, at best that you'll just be rehashing the same arguments. And if it happened in a commercial context as you've suggested, then whatever people say here would be even less relevant.

"Set a precedent" all you want, but you still haven't shown what difference it makes. I maintain that unless a precedent has some enforcement behind it - again, not just legally, but socially or otherwise - then you're just spinning your wheels to make yourself feel better. "Oh, we really took care of that. No ILX posters will be publishing compilations now!"

Precedent minus authority or force equals an example. So if this ever happens again, you'll have a really good example to show, but that's it.

Your dog-piss analogy is off. If rubbing my dog's face in urine wasn't going to stop him from peeing on the rug again, then what's the point? If the ILX precedent isn't going to stop someone from making a book again, then what's the point?

we have these people here at ILX called moderators. And we have this thing called an FAQ (soon to be revised). So I would argue that many aspects of ILX activity are enforced. Have you never seen any locked threads? General derision of trolls? Death threats towards established posters?

ps. I got my hysterical and imaginary lawyers workin' on the cease-and-desist post.

xpost yes most definitely, mr. mole. the cluster 14(c) ritual flogging stick is ready and waiting. of course, ILX would have to adequately compensate us, but you can't really put a price on the protection of your intellectual property.

Classic.

ILX didn't enforce ILX with cafepress, individuals who had their copyrights violated took up the issue. As a group entity, ILX has no standing, and even incorporated wouldn't have standing (as the FAQ explicity renders copyright back to individual posters).

Nabisco, that's fine and good, but it's got nothing to do with precedent. And that's what I was responding to.

I disagree, they can indirectly influence things as well.

ILX didn't enforce ILX with cafepress, individuals who had their copyrights violated took up the issue. As a group entity, ILX has no standing, and even incorporated wouldn't have standing (as the FAQ explicity renders copyright back to individual posters).

Technically as Andrew owns the servers, I would think he owns ILX. So I'd imagine that he could've referred to himself legally as ILX in his letter to cafepress.

I swear to God I'm letting this one go now, I'm turning into annoying 2002-nabisco.

And yes, Andrew could refer to himself as ILX - but ILX doesn't have standing to actually complain, because ILX didn't have its copyrights violated, individuals did.

And no, I'm not. But precedent has a fairly strict meaning to me, especially in a rhetorical context and referring to copyright issues.

ever hear of behavioral influence?

How do the mods stop someone from going to da Capo?

They don't. Da Capo's lawyers advise da Capo to get permission and promise payment. Then da Capo's accounts payable people screw ILXors from here to infinity.

And yes, Andrew could refer to himself as ILX - but ILX doesn't have standing to actually complain, because ILX didn't have its copyrights violated, individuals did.

Andrew had his copyright violated by both his posts being included and things being taken from his server without his permission (I don't believe the image linking thing would apply here as it's basically impossible - as far as I can tell - to prevent text theft in a technical webmaster-y way, obv. claiming copyright is non-technical).

Clearly milo's not a lawyer. I'm not one either, but just a cursory glance at current copyright laws (jumbled and misguided as they are) makes this stuff seem pretty obvious, at least to me.

Bottom line: I do believe the current ILX copyright notice needs to be expanded on.

maybe only if the site doesn't already have policies (or precedents, if you will) that copyrights belong to individual posters, as ILX does.

Anyone who posts a photo of themselves should be aware of the consequences, even moreso than their written posts. I know I thought about it before posting mine.

(x-post)

spittle, I don't know the answer to this. There might be some implied copyright or property there, I dunno.

Andrew had his copyright violated by both his posts being included and things being taken from his server without his permission (I don't believe the image linking thing would apply here as it's basically impossible - as far as I can tell - to prevent text theft in a technical webmaster-y way, obv. claiming copyright is non-technical).
Right, Andrew had his copyright violated, he had standing to complain (as did others). (I'm using standing in a semi-legal sense - anyone could, of course, write to cafepress and inform them of a copyright violation, but the only people who could actually take Mark/daCapo/cafepress to court would be the violated) Andrew wouldn't have standing as the Owner/Wizard of ILX.

He didn't have anything taken "from his servers" from the impression I got - the book was a collection of posts owned by individuals, without any ILX-owned material (which would be the FAQ and other information, I guess?). The posts are hosted on ILX's server, but ILX's guidelines forfeit any copyright claims.

(if C@llum posts one of his things and a moderator edits it - who owns the copyright to that post?)

Milo, could the individual copyright owners not sue the infringers of their copyright? Wouldn't that make a clean-cut class-action civil case? I can't imagine how somebody could argue these posts are in the public domain when it is stated clearly on this site that they are, in fact, not.
Absolutely, individuals could sue, so long as they were violated.

(The more I think about it, the more curious I am about the nature of posts to an Internet forum. Are they assumed by the courts to be similar to speaking in public, where anyone could quote you? Or are they treated as written articles? Has a court ever ruled on a case like the "selected conversations" idea?)