at the temporal coordinates: 9/6/01 1:12 PM, the entity known as DON at
don_at_dcphotos.com conveyed the following:
>
> Copyright violation only exists when the
> copyright holder takes you to court about it.
> - Eric.
>
> Man That's hysterical,
> So...Murder only exists when your on trail? Shoplifting only exists when the
> store owner takes you to court? Where do you live?
> Don
That *is* the way copyright law is widely portrayed. This notion is *so*
widespread (I could swear that I've read this in print before, and not just
in the computer press, but then the print media doesn't always do a good job
in checking things either), that I was quite surprised to learn that this is
apparently a confusion between copyright law and trademark law. If you take
my above quoted statement and substitute "trademark" in place of
"copyright", then it is, in fact, correct.
And, it is NOT hysterical. Copyright (and trademark) is generally a civil
matter and the standards of proof and all that are quite different.
Furthermore, it simply makes sense. If I have a trademark, I do so because
this has commercial value to me. Failing to protect it is equivalent to
stating that it no longer has value, in which case I've not suffered any
loss. I can see why this would apply to trademarks but not to copyright,
though. The only way a trademark can be infringed is if someone else makes
a public use of something that infringes. There is no "detection" problem
in this case. To apply this principle to copyright would entail the
hair-splitting of someone deciding just how large of a violation is enough
to constitute surrender of the copyright -- someone making an extra copy at
home, a company in another nation stamping a million CDs, or something in
between.
- Eric.
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