Tim's question has generated some discussion and it seems to me that copyright
is little understood. I occasionally sell rights to parts of a book and images
(tropical fruit and rainforest!), so I had cause to learn about the issues.
Its
a bit peripheral to this list, but copyright is generally interesting.

Copyright is based on an international convention and most nation states have
enacted very similar laws.

Copyright belongs to the creator of any original work that may be copied and
unlike trademarks, it is not registered. Placing a copyright note or symbol
just makes it clear that the owner is concerned, but this does not as such
change or improve the right.

Copyright "dies" 50 years after the creator. Current owners though retain some
rights, so you cannot make copies (without permission) of somebody's Rembrand.

Fair dealing practices allow copying of a percentage of a work for private use
(study). Copying from books requires some institutions (libraries) to collect
some funds for Publishers/Authors.

Copyright can be sold or given away completely (for instance to the Publisher)
or it can be sold for the right to reproduce the work for one particular
project/ issue etc.

It is legal to quote without permission small passages from a work and this is
commonly done in books, articles and reviews.

If larger passages/parts are used, it becomes particular contentious if they
are used commercially. So if "Joe" copies one of J A Kiernan's pearls into his
private WebPages and hopefully also acknowledges, John would not have much
of a
case against Joe. If however, I collected many of Kiernan's pearls and made
those part of our website (as a free service), John would have a case against
me.  I would not selling his pearls, but arguably I would be using Kiernan's
work to promote our business.

I believe that collecting and archiving listserver contributions (retaining
the
attribution) would be legal so long as this was not published on a commercial
site. If it was published by a commercial organisation (web or printed) you
would need to contact each contributor for permission to use. There are
precedents of such collections from other listservers and of course the
"Archives" are one such collection.

Hope that this dispels some confusion.
Cheers
Jim Darley
ProSciTech                 Microscopy PLUS
PO Box 111, Thuringowa  QLD  4817  Australia
Ph +61 7 4774 0370  Fax:+61 7 4789 2313  service@proscitech.com
Great microscopy catalogue, 500 Links, MSDS, User Notes
                      www.proscitech.com

On Wednesday, January 19, 2000 3:04 AM, Tim Morken [SMTP:timcdc@hotmail.com]
wrote:
> Histonetters,
>
> What is your opinion of having your replies to the Histonet reprinted in a
> histology newsletter with attribution? Is permission needed to do so?
>
> Thanks
>
> Tim Morken, B.A., EMT(MSA), HTL(ASCP)
> Infectious Disease Pathology
> Centers for Disease Control
> MS-G32
> 1600 Clifton Rd.
> Atlanta, GA 30333
> USA
>
> email: tim9@cdc.gov
>        timcdc@hotmail.com
>
> Phone: (404) 639-3964
> FAX:  (404)639-3043
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________
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>