Web Site and Compilation Copyright
By Jody Kravitz
I'm investigating setting up a Web Site for the digests and associated materials. I'd really rather do it on a machine that I own and control, but it may make sense to do it on a "Service Bureau" where the bandwidth would be better. I'm currently looking at scruz.net as the hosting location, as they have reasonable rates and good connectivity to the rest of the net (10 Mbits/sec). The best I could hope to do otherwise within the next year is 128 K bits/sec.
Considering this, a number of issues have come up.
First is whether I should "share" a set of Web pages with an organization such as MBSI. In light of comments made to me by Robbie Rhodes and Beatrice Roberson, I think I should retain the autonomy of having my own site.
Second is whether I should invite financial support, either from subscribers or from "advertisers". I'd like advice on this topic, and would prefer that it be sent to:
rollreq@foxtail.com
I think it would be really handy to have pointers to Web pages of reliable dealers, and it might also be possible to provide services to those who would like to do electronic commerce but don't know how. There's clearly a need here. I'm very concerned about what happenned with Playtime recently, though and have reservations as a result.
Third is the issue of copyright. At the point where the digests or individual articles are visible to the Web search engines, there will be people who are not subscribers visiting the digests. The digests now contain a lot of useful information and will contain more quickly, I expect, as people start including drawings and the like with their submissions. I'm concerned that an unscrupulous individual or organization might try to take unfair advantage of the information by publishing the information as theirs.
Philosophically, I consder each article to be the (copyrighted) work of the individual authors and the digest(s) to be the (copyrighted) work of myself. It may be too late to do this with the old digests, but on the new digests I'd like to put a "Compilation Copyright by Jody Kravitz, individual articles are Copyright by their respective authors. May not be duplicated or retransmitted without permission" or something to that effect on each digest. I would also like to claim such copyright on each Web page displayed. Again, I'd invite comments to the address I mentioned above.
Last is that I think some kind of disclaimer about the content. I'm sure that many of you have figured out by now that I don't have time to read everything that comes through here before I retransmit it to all of you. I do reformat a lot of stuff, but its almost completely automated at this point. I'm thinking of a disclaimer similar to the one used on public radio staions. Something like: "Opinions expressed are those of the individual authors and may not be those of the editor or Internet Service Provider"...
Your comments Please!
Thanks
Jody |
(Message sent Thu 1 Aug 1996, 21:08:02 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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