Re: Not a lawyer, Scott Weiser practises copyright law on the internet.

[system@niuhep.phys.niu.edu]

In article <318C4C23.617E@divsoft.com>, Ian Firth <ian@divsoft.com> writes:
>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
> Useless, patent-leather software for wanks and supermarkets.
> Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the wierdest of them all:  
> Colon James 1/3, Principal Lunatic
> cjames, cjames rant, rant james, rant@cec-services.com
> CEC Services, LLC, 2080 Kipling St, Lakewood,  CO  80215-1502
> Voice: 382.5968;  Fax: 277.4653;  Data: 675.2637
> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>
>So I can legally do the same thing then ?
>BTW, can you decipher my phone code above ???

This counts as satire and is protected by the first amendment.

I am quite willing to believe that e-mail is considered copyrighted
material, however if Colin is commenting on it, then his use may well
fall under fair use, especially since the commercial value of such
e-mail is likely nil, and he did not quote the whole thing.

While monetary damages are unlikely to be accessed, if a breach of
copyright law was found to have occured an injunction could be put
in force against Colin against further such action.  I would expect
that any violations of such an injunction would come under the 
heading of contempt of court with attendent penalties.

So to summarize, even when Colin is right (an apparently rare event) he
is wrong.

Cheers,
Robert