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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."
But he writes good sci fi. =)
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
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.
Are you gay or something?
So the fuck what if he is? What has that to do with the price of cheese?
*waits for answer*
*hears bewildered silence*
It makes no difference. The people who choose to live a different lifestyle than your own have just as much right to live that lifestyle as you do to live your own.
--
This is not the sig you're looking for.
I wonder if Harlan Ellison has ever downloaded any music and not paid for it.
s'wut i sed.
For the record: The Catholic church used to condone gay marriage.
Society doesn't turn on a dime, but if enough people lean on the steering wheel long enough, it can negotiate a curve.
George Bush cant have sex, Jesus forbids him to, he told him during one if their late night oval office chat sessions they seem to be having these days.