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Harlan Ellison vs. AOL Judgment Reversed
Robotech_Master writes "An appeals court has issued a decision reversing the summary judgment of a lower court that AOL qualified as a "safe harbor" under the DMCA. At issue is the fact that Ellison sent his notification of copyright violation to an email address at AOL, which AOL never received because the abuse submission address had been changed." The complete decision is available here as a PDF file; read below for an excerpt.
"AOL changed its contact e-mail address from "copyright@aol.com" to "aolcopyright@aol.com" in the fall of 1999, but waited until April 2000 to register the change with the U.S. Copyright Office. Moreover, AOL failed to configure the old e-mail address so that it would either forward messages to the new address or return new messages to their senders. In the meantime, complaints such as Ellison's went unheeded, and complainants were not notified that their messages had not been delivered. Furthermore, there is evidence in the record suggesting that a phone call from AOL subscriber John J. Miller to AOL should have put AOL on notice of the infringing activity on the particular USENET group at issue in this case, "alt.binaries.e-book." Miller contacted AOL to report the existence of unauthorized copies of works by various authors. Because there is evidence indicating that AOL changed its e-mail address in an unreasonable manner and that AOL should have been on notice of infringing activity we conclude that a reasonable trier of fact could find that AOL had reason to know of potentially infringing activity occurring within its USENET network."
They failed to change copyright to forward to aolcopyright? That does sound a bit odd. But AOL is known for doing stupid things.
Looks like actual notice to me.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That excerpt sounds like they're holding AOL responsible for the actions of its users, based on AOL having a bad e-mail address listed. Which sounds insane, so there must be more going on...
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
But he writes good sci fi. =)
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
If you find someone copying your stuff on the internet, don't send a notice to the ISP's email address, CALL THEM!
Shorter summary:
If it needs to be done, email ain't the mode of communication you want.
Slashlaw: The Finest in IANAL Speculation
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
As far as I know Usenet is a global network. AOL cannot possibly control what is posted on there, unless they stop carrying that newsgroup entirely.
If I interpret this correctly, some of Ellison's work was posted on Usenet, from AOL. So, is it copyright infringement if no one wants to read it?
Look up the history of things surrounding "City on the Edge of Forever" if you want to hear about what Ellison wanted to do to Star Trek, compared to what they ended up having to revise to make actually work.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Blame the spamblocker, AOL. Don't say that there was no way that email could have been forwarded.
Come on, use your heads! You could have gotten off, baby!
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I would use that high-speed technology to send The American Choppers kid (you know the geeky one) back in time to kill Harlan Ellison. But in an ironic twist he will fall in love with him and instead be forced to let him die in a freak truck accident.
I've never heard nor seen USENET refered to as a "peer to peer" file sharing network.
Or a hyphenation of "news-group".
-- benton.
Why doesn't AOL just settle with Ellison, maybe offer him like 5,000 free hours instead of the normal 2,500?
From the submission blurb: Furthermore, there is evidence in the record suggesting that a phone call from AOL subscriber John J. Miller to AOL should have put AOL on notice of the infringing activity on the particular USENET group at issue in this case, "alt.binaries.e-book."
GPL Deconstructed
Skimming the papers, it sounds like email is the legally acceptable way of contacting an ISP about a copyright issue... which seems kind of surprising. I mean, when you sue someone, they generally have to be notified either by certified mail or in person. If the U.S. Postal Service can't be trusted to deliver a supena, is it reasonable to trust email with a takedown notice and punish the recipeient for not acting?
I have blog like everyone else
HARLAN ELLISON FIGHTS FOR CREATORS' RIGHTS
Re: Harlan Ellison v. Stephen Robertson, America Online, Inc., RemarQ Communities, Inc., Critical Path, Inc., Citizen 513, and Does 1-10, Federal District Court, Central District of California Civil Case No. 00-04321 FMC (RCx)
22 February 2001
FOR THE PAST TEN MONTHS MY ATTORNEY, M. CHRISTINE VALADA, AND I HAVE BEEN HIP-DEEP FIGHTING A LEGAL BATTLE, WHAT WE THINK IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT CASE:
TO PROTECT WRITERS' CREATIVE PROPERTIES.
WE FILED A LAWSUIT AGAINST THE ABOVE PARTIES TO STOP THEM FROM POSTING MY WORKS ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT PERMISSION. THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. RAMPANT. OUT OF CONTROL. PANDEMIC.
AOL, REMARQ/CRITICAL PATH AND A HOST OF SELF-SERVING INDIVIDUALS SEEM TO THINK THAT THEY CAN ALLOW THE DISSEMINATION OF WRITERS' WORK ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION, AND WITHOUT PAYMENT, UNDER THE BANNER OF "FAIR USE" OR THE IDIOT SLOGAN "INFORMATION MUST BE FREE." A WRITER'S WORK IS NOT INFORMATION: IT IS OUR CREATIVE PROPERTY, OUR LIVELIHOOD AND OUR FAMILIES' ANNUITY. WHY SHOULD ANY ARTIST, OF ANY KIND, CONTINUE CREATING NEW WORK, EKING OUT AN EXISTENCE IN PURSUIT OF A CAREER, FOLLOWING THE MUSE, WHEN LITTLE INTERNET THIEVES, RODENTS WITHOUT ETHIC OR UNDERSTANDING, STEAL AND STEAL AND STEAL, CONVENIENCING THEMSELVES AND "SCREW THE AUTHOR"? WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT IS THE DEATH OF THE PROFESSIONAL WRITER!
THIS IS NOT ONLY MY FIGHT, I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHOSE WORK IS BEING PIRATED. HUNDREDS OF WRITERS' STORIES, ENTIRE BOOKS, THE WORK OF A LIFETIME, EVERYONE FROM ISAAC ASIMOV TO ROGER ZELAZNY: THEIR WORK HAS BEEN THROWN ONTO THE WEB BY THESE SMARTASS VANDALS WHO FIND IT AN IMPOSITION TO HAVE TO PAY FOR THE GOODS. (BUT GAWD FORBID YOU TRY TO APPROPRIATE SOMETHING OF THEIRS...LISTEN TO 'EM SQUEAL!) THE OUTCOME OF THIS CASE WILL AFFECT EVERY WRITER, EDITOR, PHOTOGRAPHER, ARTIST, MUSICIAN, POET, SCULPTOR, ACTOR, BOOK DESIGNER, PUBLISHER AND READER. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT IS THE ANARCHY OF IGNORANT THIEVES RIPPING OFF THOSE WHO LABOR FOR AN HONEST PAYDAY, BECAUSE THEY CONVENIENTLY HONOR THE LIE THAT EVERYTHING SHOULD BE THEIRS FOR THE TAKING.
LOOK, THIS IS YOUR FIGHT, TOO. IF THAT DEMENTED, SELF-SERVING MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE WORD "INFORMATION" PREVAILS, AND EVERY ZERO-ETHIC TOT WHO WANTS EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING, WHO EXISTS IN A TIME WHERE E-COMMERCE HUSTLERS HAVE CONVINCED HIM/HER THAT THEY'RE ENTITLED TO EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING PREVAILS, AND THEY ARE PERMITTED TO BELIEVE INFORMATION MUST BE FREE, WITH NO DIFFERENTIATION MADE BETWEEN RAW DATA AND THE CREATIVE PROPERTIES THAT PROVIDE ALL ARTISTS OF ANY KIND WITH AN ANNUITY, TO ALLOW THEM TO CONTINUE CREATING NEW WORK, THEN WHAT WE'RE LOOKING AT IS THE EGREGIOUS INEVITABILITY OF NO ONE BUT AMATEURS GETTING THEIR WORK EXPOSED, WHILE THOSE WHO PRODUCE THE BULK OF ALL PROFESSIONAL-LEVEL ART FIND THEY CANNOT MAKE A DECENT LIVING.
DO NOT, FOR AN INSTANT, BUY INTO THE CULTURAL MYTHOLOGY THAT ALL ARTISTS ARE RICH. A FEW ARE, BUT MOST HAVE A HARD ROW TO HOE JUST SUBSISTING, HOLDING DOWN SECOND JOBS. MOST CREATORS PRACTICE THEIR ART BECAUSE THEY LOVE IT. IF IT WERE ONLY FOR THE BUCKS, THEY'D FARE BETTER AS DENTISTS, PLUMBERS, OR STEAM FITTERS. I'M FIGHTING FOR MYSELF, OF COURSE, BUT I'M ALSO DOING THIS FOR AVRAM DAVIDSON, WHO DIED BROKE; FOR ROGER ZELAZNY, WHO HAD TO WORK LIKE A DOG TILL THE DAY HE PITCHED OVER; AND FOR GERALD KERSH, WHOSE WORK WAS REPRINTED AND PIRATED IN SIXTY-FIVE COUNTRIES, WHILE HE HAD TO BORROW MONEY FROM FRIENDS TO FIGHT OFF THE CANCER. THIS IS YOUR FIGHT, TOO, GANG... AND NOW WE NEED YOUR HELP!
FOR THE PAST TEN MONTHS, MY ATTORNEY AND I HAVE FOUGHT THIS ALONE. ALTHOUGH WE ARE LOATH TO ASK, WE DO NOT HAVE THE ENDLESS DEEP POCKETS AND LAWYERS (14 AT THE LAST COUNT) THAT BENEFIT LARGE, ARROGANT CORPORATIONS. WE NOW NEED YOUR FINANCIAL HELP. AS TO THE MONEY BEING SPENT FOR THE DAVID-vs.-AOL GOLIATH LAWSUIT: YEAH, IT'S BEEN A BEAR. WE'RE ABOUT FORTY GRAND OUT OF POCKET, AND I'VE HAD TO SELL OFF A FEW PERSONAL POSSESSIONS AND MAGAZINE
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
Harlan Ellison's webpage:
From his NEWS page he's been on a campaign to Kick Internet Piracy.
According to this site, he's been fighting to prevent unauthorized posting of books/creating work on the intarweb without the authors consent...he believes AOL was partly responsible for his works being posted.
TO PROTECT WRITERS' CREATIVE PROPERTIES.
WE FILED A LAWSUIT AGAINST THE ABOVE PARTIES TO STOP THEM FROM POSTING MY WORKS ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT PERMISSION. THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. RAMPANT. OUT OF CONTROL. PANDEMIC.
What I find surprising is that the lower court sided WITH AOL in what looks to be a one sided case in favor of Ellison. How can the lower court support the DMCA and still side with an evil corporation...are they that corrupt now? Do we need federal courts to provide simple justice to the common man now?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The DMCA usually protects the mega-ISP from being responsible for the copyright violations of its users when it posts user-submitted content without screening it.
However, in order to qualify for that protection, the ISP has to register a contact point with the Copyright Office for all complaints to be sent, and must respond to all properly formatted requests sent to that contact point. It turns out this request to kill a Usenet posting from AOL's servers got lost because the copyright owner sent it to the registered address, but it turns out nobody was reading it since they had established a new address and didn't change their registration.
Therefore, the plantiff followed the law correctly, and AOL missed their chance to escape punishment by letting the time run out. Therefore, the safe harbor clause of the DMCA doesn't apply here, and AOL's going to be open to liablity here.
What sort of precident does this set regarding USEnet?
It is possible that this judgment could some way be construed to hold all ISPs who give subscribers access to USEnet liable for copyright infringement?
Seems to me when first glancing at the headline that they were saying that AOL is responsible.
This is not the case, #include IANAL.txt, from what I can tell. It seems that the summary, ie just automatically granting AOL rights as a safe-haven was reversed... Instead the actual desision was remanded back to the court to look at to determine if AOL actually does qualify for that provision.
They also affirmed that AOL did not act in a vicious maner in reguard to the posting of the material and thus I assume that means no 3x actual penalties...
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Original text from Harlan here, perhaps someone reply with a bit of SHIFT-F3.
Harlan, you and Darl need to stop copying one another's business models. He copies your publishing of fiction, and you realize that litigation is more profitable than work!
Shame on you both!
"I wasn't using my civil rights anyway...."
Do you browse Slashdot for the ads only?
We've told you not to post on Slashdot before!
Why is parent still sitting at -1? That is one of the most insightful posts I've ever read on Slashdot!
I see the problem: His original email to AOL was probably ALLCAPS, so their spam-filter ate it.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...if they had argued that the email had not been delivered due to technical problems, filtering or whatnot, it might be a valid defense. Same as claiming the postal service failed to deliver your letter.
But when you're legally required to have a correct address registered with the copyright office, and fail to do so, I fail to see the problem. That's like relocating, and not informing the copyright office because any regular mail could have been lost anyway.
The more interesting question is if AOL is responsible for the files on Usenet - as far as I know they've not been held liable in the US so far, but the practice world wide is differing. I know that here a company was fined 1.000.000 NOK for carrying kiddie porn groups, while strangely enough warez and mp3 groups go completely unpunished.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well since AOL apparently bothced their get-out-of-jail feee card I wonder if they are going to spend some of that cash pile of theirs to put a big dent in the DMCA to get of the hook.
Or if the AOL part will just bend over and take it so that the Time Warner part can keep their beloved DMCA intact.
/greger
And networks like it.
Harlan thinks of some turkey posts his book on USENET, he should then be able to attack all the zillions of people running a USENET server.
In his first round, he didn't do well, but he did have this one technicality -- AOL didn't handle their complaint address properly. And AOL getting dinged for this is fine. What we need to worry about is what the precedent means.
I mean, we've all had email go astray before, had servers go down, had mail drop on the floor. (Happens daily in the world of overactive spam filters.)
This might mean that some sites will decide there is too much legal risk in hosting content or usenet servers.
This part of the DMCA (little relation to the circumvention parts) was meant to make it easier to be an ISP, though at the cost of making them obey every takedown without requiring proof in some cases.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
For the past ten months my attorney, m. Christine valada, and i have been hip-deep fighting a legal battle, what we think is an extremely important case:
to protect writers' creative properties.
We filed a lawsuit against the above parties to stop them from posting my works on the internet without permission. This is copyright infringement. Rampant. Out of control. Pandemic.
Aol, remarq/critical path and a host of self-serving individuals seem to think that they can allow the dissemination of writers' work on the internet without authorization, and without payment, under the banner of "fair use" or the idiot slogan "information must be free." a writer's work is not information: it is our creative property, our livelihood and our families' annuity. Why should any artist, of any kind, continue creating new work, eking out an existence in pursuit of a career, following the muse, when little internet thieves, rodents without ethic or understanding, steal and steal and steal, conveniencing themselves and "screw the author"? What we're looking at is the death of the professional writer!
This is not only my fight, i'm not the only one whose work is being pirated. Hundreds of writers' stories, entire books, the work of a lifetime, everyone from isaac asimov to roger zelazny: their work has been thrown onto the web by these smartass vandals who find it an imposition to have to pay for the goods. (but gawd forbid you try to appropriate something of theirs...listen to 'em squeal!) The outcome of this case will affect every writer, editor, photographer, artist, musician, poet, sculptor, actor, book designer, publisher and reader. What we're looking at is the anarchy of ignorant thieves ripping off those who labor for an honest payday, because they conveniently honor the lie that everything should be theirs for the taking.
Look, this is your fight, too. If that demented, self-serving misunderstanding of the word "information" prevails, and every zero-ethic tot who wants everything for nothing, who exists in a time where e-commerce hustlers have convinced him/her that they're entitled to everything for nothing prevails, and they are permitted to believe information must be free, with no differentiation made between raw data and the creative properties that provide all artists of any kind with an annuity, to allow them to continue creating new work, then what we're looking at is the egregious inevitability of no one but amateurs getting their work exposed, while those who produce the bulk of all professional-level art find they cannot make a decent living.
Do not, for an instant, buy into the cultural mythology that all artists are rich. A few are, but most have a hard row to hoe just subsisting, holding down second jobs. Most creators practice their art because they love it. If it were only for the bucks, they'd fare better as dentists, plumbers, or steam fitters. I'm fighting for myself, of course, but i'm also doing this for avram davidson, who died broke; for roger zelazny, who had to work like a dog till the day he pitched over; and for gerald kersh, whose work was reprinted and pirated in sixty-five countries, while he had to borrow money from friends to fight off the cancer. This is your fight, too, gang... And now we need your help!
For the past ten months, my attorney and i have fought this alone. Although we are loath to ask, we do not have the endless deep pockets and lawyers (14 at the last count) that benefit large, arrogant corporations. We now need your financial help. As to the money being spent for the david-vs.-aol goliath lawsuit: yeah, it's been a bear. We're about forty grand out of pocket, and i've had to sell off a few personal possessions and magazine files to meet attorney costs. But we're about to enter the "discovery phase" of the litigation, and aol, remarq/critical path, et al are clearly trying to "paper us out," and what we've spent up to now will seem like a fart in a sirocco. So, yes, oh yes lawd, contributions are gratefully accepted in this fight
While I think AOL is in the wrong here and should get punched in the face for their stupid actions, I find it hard to have sympathy for this Ellison guy. From the looks of it he found copies of his books on usenet. Does he really believe any significant number of people really wants to read books on a computer?
Paperbacks are still relatively cheap and available. I much prefer an actual printed book for $7 to having to scrunch up in front of a computer and strain my eyes for several hours to read a book. Sure I can read it on a teeny tiny PDA screen, but that sucks too. Books are probbably the _least_ susceptible to copyright violation, and have withstood the onslaught of copy machines for decades. Printed books are simply a better technology than electronic books, and probbably will be true for the forseeable future. While Ellison certainly has a right to complain about his works being posted on usenet, it seems more akin to some old man yelling at kids to "get off my lawn!".
AccountKiller
Love you Harley.
In any large (even medium) organisation, there is no guarantee that your complaint has been heard *by the right person*. That's like serving verbal notice on McDonalds by talking to the guy who gives you your fries.
Email leaves a permanent record. It's a much better medium than the phone for this sort of thing, and AOL are meant to be an internet company. Normally, I would say registered mail - but in this case, it appears that AOL registered this email specifically, in accordance with the law, and then changed it/neglected to check the old one.
1. Spam usenet under false identity. 2. Complain to copyright office. 3. Repeat 1 and 2 as often as necessary to get violations by major ISP's. 4. Sue. This only works if the ISP's are actually held responsible.
THEIR WORK HAS BEEN THROWN ONTO THE WEB BY THESE SMARTASS VANDALS WHO FIND IT AN IMPOSITION TO HAVE TO PAY FOR THE GOODS
You know what? I was a teenager from a poor family. No father and an overworked mother going to school and holding down a full-time job at the same time bringing in barely minimum wage. No child-support. Living with her parents (our grandparents).
My main exposure to good books was online, through Project Gutenberg and various shared copies of e-books (fair use?). I had never even HEARD of Ellison until I read a copy of one of his books online.
I find spending $20 on a CD to be ludicrous and criminal. But you know what else I find criminal? Spending $20, $30, $40 or even $50 for a book of fiction. Christ, it's a couple hundred half-sheets of paper glued and bound into a set of thick cardboard covers for fucks's sake.
It's cheaper to get full platinum digital cable with every movie channel and HBO and all the channels your cable provider offers each month than to afford a book per week reading habit. Books are fucking criminally expensive and I can't blame people for sharing them.
People like Harlan not only want people to not share ebooks, but he doesn't want them to share real physical books either. They don't like libraries, they don't like used book stores. They don't like auctions for used books. They don't even want you to give a copy of a book to a friend when you're done reading it. They want every person who ever reads their work to have to pay for it all over again.
So excuse me if I don't cry you a fucking river, you pompous prick. And excuse the fuck out of me if I don't send you a check for your stupid "kick internet piracy" bullshit.
I heard that Ellison's original script had some low-level Enterprise crew doing drugs which leads to this time-travel incident, but the Hollywood suits took that out because the Enterprise crew are all Eagle Scouts and that would never happen in the Star Trek universe, so they rewrote the script to have McCoy accidently inject himself with a dangerous (legit) medication when the Enterprise hits a space-time "air pocket" (you know, one of those things that tosses everyone out of the seats that they are not belted into).
If you write scripts for Hollywood, having someone else do a rewrite for any of a number of pandering reasons is part of the landscape, and as far as making the Enterprise crew Boy Scouts who would never use drugs, whoever is supervising a series has to keep the episodes consistent with a vision or else it turns into Superman Comics where Superman keeps getting more powers in each episode that they have to hit some kind of reset button.
Getting back on topic, Ellison may not be a nut case, but he has a track record of pissing into the wind on matters of principle that turn out to be no-win situations.
I mean seriously, why would registering the change even be an issue? I deal with these types of things every year when staff comes and goes, or people have their names changed. I use this really neat feature called an "alias". See, with an "alias", I can have more than one address point to the same inbox. That way, during the transition, the e-mail user has plenty of time to inform senders of the change, all without losing any important messages.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
(AND WHEN WE ARE ASKED, "WELL, WHAT IS KICK AN ACRONYM FOR?" WE RESPOND, "IT'S FOR KICK 'EM IN THE ASS!")
I hate to break it to you, but KICK is *not* an acronym for "kick 'em in the ass". Harlan, do you even know what an acronym *is*?
An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a series of words.
When did it become acceptable to just e-mail someone as a legal means to serve notice? I am suprised AOL's spam blocker didn't catch the guys e-mail address and filter it out as spam. You would think being served a DMCA notice would arrive with some sort of reply receipt, like in certified mail.
steps to abuse the process:
1. write a book or song
2. get it legally copyrighted
3. post it to usenet using a "Free 10 hours" account
4. send notices to all ISP's in the world that offer usenet access
5. sue the ones that don't respond.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
I wonder if Harlan Ellison has ever downloaded any music and not paid for it.
s'wut i sed.
amen brother AC
What ever happened to mailing? (not e-mail)
registered mail would have been ALOT better.
Or Harlan Ellison... er... the aging bloated fraud whose presence annoys intelligent tech savvy people, and who will savagely destroy anyone who he percieves as a threat to his ability perpetuate a tired business model...
Oh well... never mind...
Posting anonymously so Harlan won't be able to find me and kill me for DARING say anything against the great man.
If judges are elected where you live, you can campaign for ones that are clueful enough to understand that Usenet doesn't belong to AOL.
If judges are appointed, you can write to the governnor and the confirmation committee.
Complacency will just result in more judicial decisions based on misunderstanding of technology.
At the risk of being modded a troll, let me say that, if you can't afford the man's books, buy or do something else. Get outside and exercise, for crying out loud.
Stealing is wrong, OK? Always. It's not right when you find it convenient. It's not right when you think someone's charging too much. If you don't like it, that's just too bad, Chuckles. How would you like it if Harlan broke into your house in the middle of the night and took your computer?
I have news for all the 13-year-old buttheads out there: the world does not revolve around you, You can't get everything you want, and life,as they say, is a b**ch. Get over it.
Harlan, good luck to you.
... is to legally change his name to RIAA.
;-).
Oops, they will sue him for copyright infightement then
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
>SFWA has allocated $5000.00 to help combat Internet infringement. Approximately 25% of this was paid to the attorney for the Heinlein estate who traveled to Russia in May and attempted to shut down some of the pirate archives established there which infringe on the works of many authors, including Harlan.
... This happened because Heinlein's widow studied Russian (he even travelled to Soviet Union with her in 50-es or 60-es and wrote a short story about that), and was able to find these libraries on her own.
Now I understand why some of the Russian-language literature is disappearing from the Internet libraries
I think the copyright laws need to be changed into protecting just fresh written works. I can understand that. However, claiming that you need to be paid for a 70 years after your death is just ridiculous.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Darn, I was going to moderate in this thread but I thought I had to reply to this.
I have meet Harlan Ellison ( I was gopher for him and JMS at a convention ( with no actors ) many years ago) and I like him.He is opinionated and his not afraid to let people know what his opinions are but he is as sane as the rest of us. If you wrote something and released under a non free license would you be happy to see copies of it flying round ? Don't make the assumption that all authors are rich. Their writing is there job and its why they get paid.
I am not saying that I don't download stuff that I don't own but in general If I want something I will have paid for it. Strangely most of the things I download are more for the idea that I could watch them if I wished rather than too watch them.
There was a process to go though to get AOL to do something and they did not follow though on there obligation. Now what they should have done and what impact it may have had are another matter but they did not do what they where supposed to do.
Personally, I liked the idea of Kirk being willing to give up everything (including his oath and his integrity) for love, but Roddenberry didn't see it that way.
If you're gonna rip on someone, at least have the decency to get the facts first.
And, if you want to see how Hollywood really trashes someone's dreams, just ask Harlan to tell you about his TV show, Starlost. He was so upset at what they did to his work (they made an absolute mess of it), that he forced the producers to change his name on the credits to a pseudonym. They were almost as unhappy as Harlan about the whole thing.
So yeah, AOL screwed up. And Harlan sent an email that didn't bounce and didn't get read. SO FRIGGING WHAT? I, for one, am very nervous about any policy that says that _sending_ an email constitutes a legal notification.
So AOL should apologize, sure. And the fact that Harlan sent an email should be unadmissable... it's irrelevent (unless AOL counter-sues claiming that Harlan didn't /try/ to solve it nicely). Harlan has been screaming for so long, often as not over stupid little things that don't matter and at people who don't deserve it, it's getting hard to remember he's sometimes in the right. And it's all so shrill that it's hard to CARE these days.
As for the rest... Harlan should be going after the /user/ who posted his story, not the ISP. Harlan has broken or bent enough promises that you'd think he'd be willing to give others a little slack, eh?
Harlan *could* have set up a cancelbot. Far more efficient. But that would be actually solving the problem, and we can't be having with that.
Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
Harlan Ellison is overrated.
Always was overrated.
Harlan should be thankful people are willing to copy his stuff. Frankly his novels are so awful that I defy anyone without assburger's syndrome to get through them.
You can't.
So this guy is mostly known as a whiny old crank who once wrote a decent star trek episode.
Great reputation, Harly.
Harlan is a fucktard.
Nobody cares about the old coot, he hasn't written anything worth buying in about 40 years, and so now he's down to sueing his fans.
I'll bet he and the RIAA see eye to eye.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
" if you can't afford the man's books, buy or do something else."
No, just go to the library.
But that pisses you and Harly off. The only good thing about Harlan is that he's at death's door, and when the old coot is gone we won't have to put up with him, or people like you who take the fraud seriously.
save us the lame anaolgies with taking stuff
Sorry to clue you in, Bucko, but it is taking stuff, no analogy about it!
I understand that, in this computer age, anything stored on a hard drive is automatically considered free for the taking, but it's not. Don't use weasel words to justify the fact that you're taking money out of someone's pocket (in this case, Harlan's).
Copying a book, or a movie, or a song that you don't own the rights to (i.e., is not yours), and sharing it on the internet for others to get without paying for it, is stealing, pure and simple. Copyright Infringement is theft! It is legally and morally wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to make it sound acceptable. It's not, and never will be.
Spending $20, $30, $40 or even $50 for a book of fiction.
Wait for the paperback. Oh, and authors have NO SAY in the cover price. Thanks.
Library books are already paid for, and have "Analog Rights Management" (if you're excuse the expression) attached to them: you have to give the book back when you're done, and it's a pain in the neck for casual copying.
So, you're right. Just go to the Library. Great suggestion, one I didn't think of
Likewise, AOL should have the same rights as any other ISP
Then why do pepole refer to it as "AOHELL"?
IMHO (IANAL) and YMMV
I always knew the guy was a thick-headed asshole, but never about any issues I was informed on. I'll be dumping my 24-book Ellison collection in the garbage bin this afternoon (seriously; I'm disgusted).
Don't get me wrong. I agree with the sentiment of the rant. I think Ellison's been wronged, somewhat. But as far as the whole rant itself goes, it's like the Pauli thing, it isn't right, it isn't even wrong. Equating IP to physical property and copying to stealing, in the opening of the complaint, gets a resigned shake of the head from me, not agreement. And bringing up ethics two shakes later is nothing but ironic, given that the topic is art and money.
"Death of the professional writer," ugh... that's as may be, but it's also like describing satellite imagery as the "death of the professional spy" or the automobile as "death of the professional horse carrier". Yes, and...? There's a new paradigm afoot. Pioneers suck it in and deal with new environments; dinosaurs whine and get extincted. I know which Harlan is.
I hope I'm not like that when I get old.
Note to Mr. Ellison: we sympathize a little, but technology moves forward and sometimes you gotta just put your back to the wind when you piss.
A couple of really good Outer Limits and a reasonable body of pulp mag SF.But nothing of note for the past 35 years or so.He is mainly a world class asshole and an admitted book thief and shoplifter.See the wasted intro/conclusions he is fond of padding his stories with for some choice examples.
" If you wrote something and released under a non free license would you be happy to see copies of it flying round"
Harlan ought to be relieved that someone might want to read him.
He's so irrelevant that "Vanilla Ice" laughs at him.
" but it is taking stuff,"
What was he taking?
He must be like Jesus H Christ. People can take and take and take from the guy, and at the end of the day he still has it.
Its like the loaves and fish parable, only Harlan is about as sympathetic as, say, a slug.
"Also you'd better avoid watching TOS Star Trek episodes, as he wrote some of the best episodes"
I thought he just wrote one. It won an emmy. But still, guys win emmy's every year.
I can't think of a novel he wrote, and I seem to remember him primarily as a critic of network TV. He seems like an eccentric old man.
I'm not sure what the first guy has against him, I guess his resume is at least better than the guy who churns out those Star Wars novels. But I don't know that Mr. Ellison has been relevant since Star Trek.
Book thief? Shoplifter? Examples, please?
Yes, I'd be upset if you relieved me of the physical item of a $100 bill. If you made a counterfeit based on my $100 bill, I wouldn't give a fuck. Now which situation more closely mirrors Ellison's?
Nobody gives a shit if you grew up poor. Lots of people did. And you know what? If you don't want to pay for something, or can't afford to pay for something, that's fine. Don't pay for it. But don't go taking it without permission just because you feel your poverty gives you a right to.
Your trailer park mentality just shows with your reference to cable television. To you, that's the ultimate in the high life. But regardless of this, the fact that books are expensive is a reality. Deal with it. If you don't want to buy books, how about going to your local library, where you can borrow books for free? You can read a book a day if you wanted to and it won't even cost you a dime unless you're late in returning it.
Oh, and by the way, that computer you're typing on is nothing more than a pile of silicon, metal, and plastic for fuck's sake! How about I just dump off double the amount of each component for you and take that nasty computer off your hands? You should be lucky that you're getting twice the amount of material!
Jesus Christ, I'm pissing myself laughing!
I'd like to see the look on Harlan's face if you told him that in person. I think his head might explode.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Ancient history, when he was a teenager. He writes about it--I forget where.
I clicked on this thinking there was a new court decision since the last Slashdot article about the Ninth Circuit decision issued February 10 in this case. But it's just a dupe.
...is a raving nutcase who doesn't understand the technologies he's criticizing, the meaning of 'common carrier', the meaning of 'fair use' or the meaning of 'moderation'. He has always in his dialogue been exceedingly opionated and one-sided, but this is the first time he's taken it to legal extremes, and if you think this case is one-sided, you haven't read anything but Harlan's rants.
... *insert criticism, irony, and backhanded compliments*', but really, of course Harlan's going to represent his own story as one sided. With Harlan, there's always only one side that makes sense and he's on it.
In a nutshell, the case is this: Somebody out there (not at AOL) posted Harlan's work at AOL, and Harlan discovered that you can download his work from AOL (via newsgroups). He is not suing the ISP that posted his work, he is not suing the user that posted his work, he is suing -AOL- for not removing a -usenet posting- from its news servers. As if it wasn't on 10,000 other news-servers around the world as well. Which he didn't notify and didn't sue.
And, despite the obvious theory, I don't think this is because AOL has deep pockets, I think it's because Harlon revels in being a flaming asshole. Seriously. He makes a fortune in speaker's fees because he's an extremely -talented- opinionated asshole, who can be fun to listen to when his opinions don't conflict too badly with yours, but I've heard him questioned about the internet, and it's clear that he -doesn't have a fucking clue- about how any of this stuff works, but he's still sure that somebody out there should be responsible for making nothing gets onto the internet that shouldn't be there, and since AOL tries to be 'the internet' via ad campaigns... well, you get the idea.
I was about to say 'look around and you'll find plenty of criticism of Harlan's position', but actually, it's hard to search for, since it's generally phrased like, 'unlike certain other science-fiction authors who
--Parity None
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
The problem with Ellison is that he doesn't realize it's his fan base not the "CREATIVE PROPERTIES" that makes him money. When you erode your fan base by being a drag and a turn-off you undercut your profits more than you do by losing imaginary sales to "piracy".
..that anyone is even making the effort to bootleg his stuff. Sure, he has written some classic material over the years, but he has also been very egotistical (perhaps because he worked in Hollywood too often) for years.
In this day and age of corporate mega-franchises such as "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" Ellison should be thankful that anyone is even taking the time to read him anymore.
btw, "Harly" has an interesting appearance in the classic Esquire magazine article "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (by Gay Talese?) which I think not long ago was voted their best article in the history of the magazine.
(Yes, I know I posted this same general comment before, but it bears repeating.)
I mean, imagine that a law was passed to penalize big businesses from dumping garbage in rivers, and it would cost them $100,000 per incident. But since "incident" was so vaguely defined, even dropping a gum wrapper off a canoe would mean you violated the law.
You mean a law like Superfund? I've read that a pizza restaurant was forced to pay for toxic cleanup in a landfill because a few of its pizza boxes were found there. And you probably thought you were being facetious!
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
that Harlan is doing this is for other authors. Big names like Harlan can make their own contracts. Lesser known authors have to settle for what the publishers will offer. This invariably includes "e-print" rights, the right for the publisher to reprint it in e-book form at some time in the future should they choose to (with or without more payment at that time). If they want that book contract, they sign.
The problem is that although the publisher has rights to reprint the e-book, the copyright holder is still responsible for the work, and for seeing it isn't published in like form outside the contract. If the author went to someone else and had it done, they'd be liable. However, even if someone else does it without permission, the copyright holder is still responsible and liable. They must act is a reasonable manner to reverse that. Failure to do so could result in loss of the contract, demands for repayment of the money already paid, sued for damages for inability of the publisher to now make money on the e-book, etc.
Very few authors have the knowledge guts, money, and ornery it takes to track down (or have tracked down) the people doing the pirating and take action. Harlan does. After seeing how hard it has been for someone like him with a team full of intellectual property and computer specialists to protect his own work, it becomes obvious how hard a lesser known (and paid) author would have to work, and what their chances of success would be.
Has any publisher ever tried this yet? No.
Are any ever likely to? Not anymore.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Furthermore, as applied to USENET, this is even more rediculous to sue any given ISP as, in most cases, the infringing data will remove itself in a day or two, probably before the ISP can respond to the e-mail.
Following this process one step further, what happens to the ISP when, after receiving a takedown notice, another goofball reposts the offending document two weeks later? Again the data is on the ISPs server, but unless the ISP pays somebody with a very good memory to read every usenet post that flows through their server, the ISP will not know of its reappearance.
One final thing... Somebody please correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that one can send a cancel message to the USENET to remove a message automatically. Mr. Harlin could/should have sent such a cancellation and achieved a more effective solution, quicker.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
My favorite part of this is Spock calling vacuum tube electronics "bear skins and stone knives." I saw the episode as a kid and didn't understand what he was trying to do. Much later I figured that the tricorder lacked a video display, but they needed to see the fast forward images in the Portal to know where McCoy was, and Spock was using 1930's technology to build a video monitor to retrieve the readout from the tricorder of the Portal images. So the tricorder lacked a flat panel display. Sheesh!
I love Ellison's works and all, but if he believes that an ISP is supposed to somehow be responsible for the actions of his users, then I'm afraid I smell a bit of hypocrisy. Has a man who has always championed personal responsibility suddenly gone to the Dark Side?
Gene changed it because we can't have people selling drugs in the perfect Trek universe (that would too....human.
My memories of the earlier episodes are foggy... but I...seem...to...remember...
Wasn't there an episode which involved women taking some sort of drug that made them beautiful and excude large amounts of sex-appeal...
Ahhh, google I love you. Mudd's Women it was called...