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Archiver > USGENWEB-ALL > 1999-06 > 0928796411


From: Fred Smoot <>
Subject: Re: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] re: Impotence and Copyright infringement
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 16:00:11 -0700


Greetings all,

As usual, W. David Samuelsen is right on.

The USGenWeb Project could not litigate against parties who have
infringed on the copyrights of others. Nor do I believe the Project
could litigate even if authors assigned their copyrights to the Project
after the harvesting occurred.

And further, the Project is in no financial position to litigate against
anyone, anyway.

On the other hand, even now the USGenWeb Project has a considerable
strength. It has an incredible Internet presence.

We could make publishers very nervous if we brought the weight of our
presence against them.

Consider this. A harvester is a cockroach. And when you have a
cockroach, you have more than one. One thing for sure, we should not
treat harvesters like dust bunnies and just sweep them under the rug.

It is time to think ahead.

Fred Smoot

****
W. David Samuelsen wrote:
>
> Sandy,
>
> AS it now stands, as an entity, the USGenWeb Project don't have much
> recourse to protect the copyrights of the submitters. Neither do
> Rootsweb, or any other ISP until the bill is passed.
>
> We should thank the LDS Church for the Cannon amendments to the bill
> to protect the online databases from harvesters, giving us the means
> of protecting the copyrights of the submitters to prevent harvesters
> from taking the files entrusted to the Project Archives or state or
> local county or locality affiliated with the USGenWeb Project.
>
> In the meanwhile - where is the policy concerning assisting the
> copyright owners if the harvesters take the files that are in the
> Project?
>
> W. David Samuelsen
>

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