Embarrassment by Fair Use
Here’s an interesting case from Wisconsin. A public schoolteacher was accused of viewing pornographic material on his computer. An investigation was conducted and he was terminated. As part of that investigation, the school created a CD that contained samples of images that were allegedly viewed by the teacher. A local newspaper subsequently requested a copy of the CD under the state’s public information law.
The teacher, who apparently had only viewed the images privately and had never allowed students to view anything inappropriate, wanted to keep the material from being made public. He argued, among other things, that because the material ont he CD was copyrighted and owned by someone other than the school, the school could not release the CD to the public without infringing on the copyright.
Good argument. Open records acts routinely except from disclosure material owned by a government entity if disclosure would constitute copyright infringment. This prevents members of the public from obtaining copies of books and other materials purchased by the government without having to go through an ordinary purchasing channel.
This case has the fun little twist on that concept that lawyers and academics so love to play with. The newspaper who requested the CD asserted that providing a copy of the CD and the images on it would fall under fair use doctrine. The Court agreed. In brief, the images were not copied wholesale from the source, they were assembled as part of an internal investigation, and release would not interefere with the commercial value of the images.
Poor teacher. Here’s the lesson: private viewing of anything on a computer is not really private. Almost everything that is done on a computer can be reconstructed. And, if the computer is owned by a government entity, then all of the information and digital data contained on it belongs to that government entity. And sometimes, what belongs to the governement belongs to the people, whether you thought it was private or not. You can read the actual opinion here.
March 21st, 2008 at 7:39 am
What if you cannot trace the owner of copyrighted material, even though the publication you are drawing from is out of print?
Surely, if you post a SOURCE and then place the work up for all to see in an unabridged form, on w ebsite that is not for profit, surely then you are not treading on anyone’s toes?
I would much rather post something whole and unabridged, stating my source, than simply a rehash of someone elses work passed of as my own….and yet, if I have no direct permission…I am STILL infringeing the law…
Madness really……i post articles that are over theirty years old, from publications that are out of print. I’m not plagiarizing anything, and the original author cannot be tracked down in a million years…..the website is not making money, so whats the harm?
Seems to me that copyright is WAY out of date to the needs of the internet…it’s supposed to be an “information superhighway”, but when we get hit with “trafic tickets” like that, it makes you wonder whether copyright isn’t just a giant excuse for RESTRICTING information, rather than allowing it’s distribution…
If you can’t track down the original author, is iy not OK sinply to post his/her name as the original author, rather than rehashing the research work of others and calling it your own…
I don’t like plagiarism…..but copyright is a frustrating exercise in legal nothingness…for the benefit of the legal profession….if your intentions are honest and non-profit…whats the harm?
December 1st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Nice website, I was performing some web browsing and happened upon your blog, I was wondering if you knew your blog is displaying strangely within the K-mellon internet browser. I will see most of it however the pictures are one way or another out of whack. Probably not a massive issue since hardly nobody uses it anymore but I am old school and still run it.