copyright question

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 01:50:19 -0400, Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com> said:

> SO how do some tribute websites manage to post surveys on their 
> site-- I've seen lots of them, and I didn't know if the person who 
> put the site together had all found ways to get permission or if they 
> just hoped nobody would notice and ask them to remove the scanned surveys.

Probably because the people who hold the rights -- to the extent those
rights still exist -- either:

a) aren't aware that they hold these rights (or couldn't prove it in
court), or

b) don't believe that this technical violation of their copyright
results in an economic harm sufficient to justify having their
corporate counsel find the appropriate ISP to complain to and send a
DMCA takedown notice, or

c) believe that they would ultimately lose on fair-use grounds and
don't want to waste their attorneys' (expensive) time.

Mostly (a), I suspect.

Most of these tribute sites are non-commercial, and republish material
which itself has no commercial value; this both improves the site
maintainer's chances of winning the fair-use balancing test, and
limits the available remedies should a case ever get to court.  If
you're publishing a book or magazine, you're engaging in commercial
activity so you don't get the benefits that private non-commercial
republishers do.

-GAWollman