CYBERSPACE LAW FOR NON-LAWYERS

             Topic: COPYRIGHT 1: COPYRIGHT IN CYBERSPACE

               (Number 1 of 11 on the topic COPYRIGHT)

                           E-Mail Number: 2
                                      
   Consider the following situations:
   
     * You buy a piece of software and e-mail it to five friends.
     * You download an article from a newspaper's Web page and post in on
       an electronic bulletin board.
     * You take a post from one news group and forward it to another news
       group.
     * You respond to someone's discussion list post, and quote part of
       his post in yours
       
   . Each of these examples implicates copyright law. In each of them
   there's at least a possibility that you'd be violating the law (though
   we'll find that in at least some of them you're probably safe).
   
   Copyright law
   
    1. usually
    2. gives a copyright owner the exclusive right to control copying
    3. of a writing (or recording or picture or electronic
       transcription).
       
   In the next several messages, we'll explore each of these three
   elements.
   
   A WORD OF WARNING: Copyright law can be maddeningly vague, and
   copyright law online is doubly vague. We´ll often say something
   "might"be legal, and you might often be frustrated by it. But we have
   to be honest here - though copyright law is certain in some areas,
   it´s uncertain in others.
   
   Under these circumstances, "might makes right".
   
   
   authors:
   Larry Lessig David Post Eugene Volokh