Re: [Cdn-DMCA] What happened in Halifax?

From: "Alan DeKok" <aland _-at-_ striker.ottawa.on.ca>
To: No DMCA in Canada <canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 11:21:58 -0500

"Chris Palmer" <cpalmer@accesscable.net> wrote:
> Think of when someone reprints say "Alice in Wonderland", there is a
> copyright in the typography, layout, illustrations (that particular printing
> plate of the original illustration),

  i.e. A specific *expression* of an idea.

> any extra comments by the editor,

  Which is new text. with copyright held by the author.

> and so on.  The wording of the text is public domain; the display of
> that text is copyrighted.

  The *expression* of that idea is copyrighted.  Yes, I'm being anal
here, but that's what the law is about. :)

  But back to Matthew's point:

> > Careful there - it's not clear to me that a "format copyright" exists
> > under current law, and I wouldn't want to encourage people to try claiming
> > one.  I don't think Corel has any privileges over documents in WordPerfect
> > format merely because they are in WordPerfect format.

  You didn't address the issue he raised.  The *format* of a file is a
logical concept (i.e. an idea), and not an expression of an idea.
Thus, the file format cannot be copyrighted.

> Whether that allows  Adobe to lock up the Alice  in an "ebook" and refuse
> people the right to "read aloud" is another thing...

  Adobe has a copyright on their specific ebook expression of a public
domain work.  Thus they have certain legal rights.

  Anything else (like reading the book aloud) is something not covered
under copyright law.  I would believe, therefore, that any such
restrictions would fall under licensing (i.e. contract law), and not
copyright law.

> In other words DMCA may be part of another round of legislation. They were
> clear that they do not consider access control to be part of this session.

  That's where the lose me.

  You CANNOT have copy protection without access control.

> I think a big question they are dealing with is "When is a copy an
> infringing copy?"

  Whenever a prosecuting attorney thinks it is.  Since they're
generally unfamiliar with concepts like "network buffering of en-route
packets", this means it's perfectly logical for them to conclude that
any such buffer constitutes an infringing copy.

> Are temporary buffers infringing, archive backups, how big
> a buffer before it becomes a copy??? Is zipp'ing a file an infringement?

  I would strongly avoid size limitations on copies.  Instead, the
*intent* of the buffer should be taken into account.

  e.g. The intent of network buffers is to forward data from one node
to another.  Once the data has been forwarded, it is discarded.  In
addition, there is usually no way to examine the data in that buffer,
or make an *additional* copy which is more permanent in form.

  The intent of the network buffers is NOT to make a copy, therefore
any temporary buffer they use should not be a copy under the law.

  Alan DeKok.
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