Bret Ludwig wrote:

Large publishing concerns have attorneys on staff, who have nothing
else to do, besides this. It takes one about ten minutes to run off a
form letter and send it FedEx to the people involved. It takes even
less to send an email stating that we believe this is inappropriate
use of our IP to someone's ISP. We are talking fifty to a hundred
dollars of company time as internally billed.

Even if the amount is trivial, large publishers, and most small ones,
do the level best they can to stop unauthorized use of any and all
lawful IP. If you in good faith, with an active email address, put up
something not in the public domain it will not be long before you hear
about it.

RDH 4 is absolutely and positively public domain now.

A lot of desireable material isn't and arguably ought to be. I have
of course written my legislators, two of which are neocon fellating
whores and one basically a lazy careerist, so it is a waste of
postage. but what I view as good citizenship on my part.


I have a friend, a retired lawyer who once worked for McGraw-Hill. He
does not normally read the newsgroups but I sent him the google link to
this thread, and he emailed me back his response. Here it is:

"Mr. Ludwig is absolutely correct when he says that the large concerns
have many lawyers and paralegals on staff who are solely devoted to
tracking down infringing parties. Much of that activity stems from the
fact that U.S. copyright law and legal precedent demands that the
holders of copyright defend their properties vigorously or risk loss of
the copyright.

So, if an infringement is discovered, the identified infringer will be
sent a C & D letter, even if the material in question is of little
immediate value to the holder. The C & D letter costs the holder very
little to send, and will at least establish some diligence on the part
of the copyright holder to assert and protect the holder's copyright of
the material. Most of the time, the infringer takes steps to stop the
infringement upon receipt of the letter, and that's the end of that. It
is situations where the infringer does not act-ignores the C & D letter-
where the decision of what to do next becomes dicey.

If the material is an original, artistic work, then the publisher who
holds copyright will most likely go ahead with a lawsuit, because there
is at least some possibility that the work will continue to be enjoyed
by a significant number of people far into the future.

However, in the case of old, outdated reference material, there is
likely going to be some sort of a value test done before the holder will
go further. In a perfect world, the holder would take whatever action is
necessary to stop infringement in every single instance, but the world
we live in is one that is driven by economics and practicality. If the
materials in question are non-artistic, antiquated, and out-of-print,
the up-front costs of securing a judgement against an infringer will
likely exceed the value of the item being infringed. Although there are
mechanisms to recover some of these costs from an infringing party that
chooses to ignore a C & D letter, the reality is that recovery of these
costs in the short term is often quite difficult, and often difficult in
the longer term as well. The holder may well find that they have spent
all this money to pursue an infringer who has no assets that can be
attached. The phrase "you can't squeeze blood from a stone" really
applies here. It is for this reason that casual copyright infringement,
which occurs millions of times per day on the internet, is rarely
prosecuted.

With regards to Mr Jute, his interpretation of the strength of
Australian copyright law, as it applies in the USA, is quite fanciful,
to say the least. If you are going to prosecute an infringer in an
American court, the law that is going to referenced in that case is
American law, period. Australian law will only be considered to the
extent that it matches the American statutes exactly. If the publication
dates stated previously are correct, then the "RDH4" publication that is
being discussed here had a USA copyright period of 28 years before
entering public domain UNLESS the holder took explicit legal steps to
extend the period another 28 years (later expanded to 65 years and
modified again to 70 years beyond the author's death). No extension, no
protection now for works produced in that era. In the case of a
reference work such as the "RDH4" the question of whether or not the
copyright was extended is FAR from certain. There are many that were
extended and many more that were not. If the person who is publishing it
on the internet has not received a C&D letter within a few weeks or
months, I would suspect that the "RDH4" is indeed public domain at this
point, but I would not be certain.

Now, a publisher might choose to pursue litigation in an Australian
court, and might get a judgement there, but all of the same issues of
recouping the costs outlined above come into play, and if the infringer
is located in some other place than Australia the difficulty of
recouping those costs take on a whole new dimension."

So, there you have it....An opinion from someone who has been there,
done that.

-Scott