For context, I worked as a music copyist for some pretty major composers and had to deal with all sorts of nightmare copyright issues. What is done privately is effectively a non-issue legally, but copyright is exactly that, the right to copy. No one is going to sue you for keeping someone's dissertation and that is, indeed, not a copyright issue as no copy is being made. They could sue if you decided to make a copy and somehow they become aware of it, but that is basically a tree falls in the woods philosophical question. More than often, though, they ignore the small fish. This has led to confusion that people can legally make private copies or copyrighted material. Yes, you almost definitely won't get in trouble (don't copy that floppy... or at least don't tell anyone you did!), but you aren't on legal grounds and ethically, well, that gets even more complicated. Add to that certain clear as mud exceptions for "backup" copies and you end up with a legal mess. Any act of publishing that duplicates copyrighted material without permission is a violation of copyright. Period. Whether or not it is proveable in a court of law is an entirely different issue. Here's some relevant information: <https://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/law.html> --- The First Sale Doctrine The physical ownership of an item such as a book, painting, manuscript or CD is not the same as owning the copyright to the work embodied in that item. Under the First Sale Doctrine (Section 109 of the Copyright Act), ownership of a physical copy of a copyright-protected work permits lending, reselling, disposing, etc., of the item. However, it does not permit reproducing the material, publicly displaying or performing it, or engaging in any of the acts reserved for the copyright holder. Why? Because the transfer of the physical copy does not transfer the copyright holder's rights to the work. Even including an attribution on a copied work (for example, putting the author's name on it) does not eliminate the need to obtain the copyright holder's consent. To use copyrighted materials lawfully, you must secure permission from the applicable copyright holders or a copyright licensing agent. --- and further down --- The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created and fixed in a tangible form, such as the first time it is written or recorded. No other action is required to secure copyright protection – neither publication, registration nor other action in the Copyright Office (although registration is recommended). The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law, although it is recommended. This requirement was eliminated when the United States adhered to the Berne Convention effective March 1, 1989. If a copyright holder wants to use a copyright notice, he or she may do so freely without permission from or registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. In fact, the use of a copyright notice is recommended because it reminds the public that the work is protected by copyright. --- I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, but I've spent way too much time talking to lawyers. -Adam On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 9:55 PM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 6:10 PM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Well, while I have a lot I could post on these matters, I won't. I'm not a lawyer and these are legal matters. The rest is discussion not advice.
Certain content one might obtain from others accidentally on an abandoned computer, is outright illegal to own and distribute. Delete it - period. Other content is proprietary and still in distribution, thus an actionable issue by the active producers of that content.
Herb,
I respectfully contest your statement
First of all, I believe (my belief) that one should try to leave a vintage computer as-is if possible, to preserve it's providence. Unless the owner specifically says to delete everything I don't make a point to do so.
Content authored by a person is owned by that person, i.e. "copyright ". True, copyright is retained even after sale or abandonment of the vessel that stored that content (notebook, computer, tape recorder, etc.), but it's not a blanket thing. One who obtains a computer legally will not be guilty of a copyright violation solely by failing to delete the content, nor is it a copyright violation for using the content privately. It's not illegal to retain the content that came with an abandoned computer per se, and there is no law that requires the deletion of such materials, even if ethically it may be the right thing to do. Private letters, resumes, letters to the editor, transcripts, poems, computer programs, thesis...they all have different copyright standards so it depends what materials we're talking about. It also depends on the type of legal entity who formally owned computer (company computer, individual's home computer, public computer from a library, etc.).
For example, let's say a person wrote their doctoral thesis and stored it on the hard drive pf an old computer, and years later that the person donated the computer as-is to Goodwill. If I was to extract that file somehow and publish it, no violation of copyright law would occur as long as the thesis had been published exactly as it appeared on the computer and was therefore already public. Unless it was a privately-published journal, and so on. If an earlier, unfinished revision of the final thesis was also found on the computer, that's a different story and it's easier to prove copyright violation perhaps. In short, once the information has been made publicly available, and a few other caveats, it's "less protected", so the rule generally-speaking is that it has to be otherwise unavailable content as well as originally authored. Further, if one were to anonymize the content before publishing that would likely be ok, if the names and personal info was sanitized from the published version.
Bill