[conspire] Book Burning continues thanks to the Feds

[Ruben Safir]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 07:36:43AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> 
> > BTW - that sounds like an agreement with me Rick :)
> 
> Please read _with_ context, Ruben:  Registration of your copyright
> accomplishes _constructive notice_ to infringers.  
> 
> Do you understand what that term means?  
> 

Yeah - what it means, as any IP Lawyer you hire will tell you, that if
you try to sue for copyright infringment without registering with the
LOC your up the creek without a paddle.

The discovery part of the case would make it monetarily useless.


> It means that, as of that date, you have deprived all infringers of the
> ability to justifiably say 'Your Honour, I didn't know, and I had no
> reasonable way to know, that the plaintiff owned copyright over that
> work.  I merely found it lying in the street, so it's unfair to assess
> statutory damages or attorney's fees against me.  Please make me at
> worst merely compensate the plaintiff for his losses, because my
> infringement wasn't willful.'

If you go by the rhetoric from the copyright crazies, mearly scanning
and copying someing is infringment and it is all, thereofr, willfull.
It is an intolerable situation.

> 
> Thus, if you haven't bothered to register your copyright, you can sue to 
> recover actual damages and to enjoin infringement.  You cannot sue for
> statutory damages or attorney's fees.  
> 

You can sue for anything.  Collecting something substantial in court is
the pracical problem.

> And, by the way, along with your rather whopping filing fee for the
> court and paying for your attorney's third daughter's orthodontics work,
> you will need at that time to tender $35 to the Library of Congress's
> Copyright Office to register your copyright.  If you have that few dimes
> to rub against each other that you cannot afford to register your modern
> Mona Lisa with the Copyright Office, maybe you should stay out of
> courtrooms.
> 

:)  :)

> Now, if you're entirely done with rather pointless arguing over what
> does not matter, then can we gently caressing be allowed to go ahead
> with our Fridays, please?
> 


I got to get to a job interview .... My creative works don't pay the
bills.

I once told someone on the NYLUG list, in a thread far more boisterous
than this one, on the subject of copyright, to stop copying my text in
the message thread, and this was official notice of such a warning under
US Copyright law, of a misuse  of my copyrighted published works on the
NYLUG Mailing list.  The guy went balistic...

But I was legally right, and hopefully made the valid point.


Remember - WWII in it's entirety is owned LOCK SOCK AND BARREL by
Time-Warner, and the NY Times  and any discussion of the war, accounts, 
picture and video are the sole pocession of Major League Baseball, or for 
that matter any discussion of the the Holocaust is a trangression of
Time-Warner's, and the NY Times exclussive rights.  

So stop now, and Goodwin's law is now evoked.

Ruben

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"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"

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"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt.  I guess you missed that one."

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