Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Where's the line??
Author: Jeremy Bowers Posted: 9/2/1999; 8:52:37 PM Topic: Who owns what parts of your webpage? Msg #: 10486 (In response to 10482) Prev/Next: 10485 / 10487
- Criteria of "rightness" have always been weak, and that's before the digital era. Find me a [legal!] definition of "fair use" that includes a number. Of any kind. Percent. Absolute quantity. Anything. You can't.
You're right, that's weak. But it's all we've got. Probably all we'll ever have.- Misrepresentation as a criteria is insufficient. Taken as the sole standard, it implies that it is perfectly acceptable to totally replicate a page and place it on your site. (No misrepresentation... it's exactly the same in every way, visually.) Taken as a part of others... well, now it's just another "(weak, IMHO) qualit[y]" that we are applying. (I don't object to it at all... in the end, it will almost certainly figure into things. My point is that there is no way that can provide an out.)
Again, let me reiterate, such a thing is necessary, but not sufficient. You do not necessarily get the right to represent somebody, even if it is perfectly. Heck, is it even possible to not mis-represent something? No matter what you do, the context is not the same as the original context. You may have permission to place it in the new context, but it will almost certainly mean something slightly different there.
I know, I've been negative a lot lately ("That won't work, because..."). The problem is, it's easy to explain why something doesn't work. Finding what does is difficult. I've got something knocking around in my brain, though, we'll see if I can make sense of it, and maybe y'all can kick it around for while, see if you can break it, and whether it can be fixed.
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