Posted: Mar 13, 2010 8:52 am
epepke wrote:FACT-MAN-2 wrote:In the singular, RDNet did not constrain its members from downloading their own (posted) material, so the question becomes how does this translate to the collective? Given the principal of "no harm, no foul" it seems to me RDNet would have a hard time making a case for damages againts anyone who downloaded the entire site's data repository for the express purpose of sharing it with others on a no-cost basis or in a no-cost model.
Actually, the announcement that the forum would be up gave permission for any "regular" posters to download any material they valued for "local" archive. So people don't only have permission to download their stuff; they have permission to download anything they find of value.
The only possible quibbling would be over "local." I think it clearly means that it shouldn't be used to populate a new website, but there is a gray area about whether downloading it and then sharing it with others, not for profit, is permitted. I think there's a good argument that having people share it is functionally equivalent to everyone's downloading it, except that it doesn't use RDF bandwidth and therefore saves the RDF money. Since copyright law is shot through with notions of compensation, I think this would be a cogent and compelling argument.
Compensation need not be monetary but also an obligation to do something. Open Source licenses rest on copyrights and you download that software for free (monetary) but it comes at a cost in your downstream obligations.
I didn't really post because of this unbelievably unsubtle ambiguity in the FUA which (rightly or wrongly) led me to believe something was rotten in the state of Denmark back in feb '09. If I did though post then I would be concerned that the forum had been cloned without my permission. If I publish something on a channel or platform (e.g. Wikipedia) then I expect that the licensing terms are followed by those that copy it. With Wikipedia it is acknowledging the source as Wikipedia.
With rd.net it seems that everyone thinks we still retain the copyright. If I retain copyright then I can withdraw that at any time. I may have given RD.net permission but I certainly didn't give "you" (i.e. someone else). The clone is simply living on borrowed time though I'm playing devils advocate here.