[VintageLambo] Re: Islero Article -- Copyright question.

Hi Roy, I"m not a lawyer.But I do hold several patents and receive royalties from those as well as from other copyrighted works, so I am familiar with the mechanism and the intent. Personally, I believe what we are doing is research and education. We are not making any money off the posting of articles or diagrams. We are researching material and educating our members as to how their cars work, or the history behind their cars. I did a quick google search on contemporary copyright laws, and was encouraged to read the following (below).Based on it, I would say we"re ok on a number of levels.If we are not, and are asked to remove the material, I will be happy to remove any material I have posted.But the bottom line is that we are trying to educate and serve the public interest, and we are not collecting a fee. I"d certainly be interested in hearing a copyright lawyer"s opinion on this. Best, Fred ------------------------- Fair Use In The Electronic Age: Serving The Public Interest The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art. -- Justice Sandra Day O"Connor (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 US 340, 349(1991) The genius of United States copyright law is that, in conformance with its constitutional foundation, it balances the intellectual property interests of authors, publishers and copyright owners with society"s need for the free exchange of ideas. Taken together, fair use and other public rights to utilize copyrighted works, as confirmed in the Copyright Act of 1976, constitute indispensable legal doctrines for promoting the dissemination of knowledge, while ensuring authors, publishers and copyright owners appropriate protection of their creative works and economic investments. The fair use provision of the Copyright Act allows reproduction and other uses of copyrighted works under certain conditions for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching(including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research. Additional provisions of the law allow uses specifically permitted by Congress to further educational and library activities. The preservation and continuation of these balanced rights in an electronic environment as well as in traditional formats are essential to the free flow of information and to the development of an information infrastructure that serves the public interest. It follows that the benefits of the new technologies should flow to the public as well as to copyright proprietors. As more information becomes available only in electronic formats, the public"s legitimate right to use copyrighted material must be protected. In order for copyright to truly serve its purpose of "promoting progress," the public"s right of fair use must continue in the electronic era, and these lawful uses of copyrighted works must be allowed without individual transaction fees. Without infringing copyright, the public has a right to expect: to read, listen to, or view publicly marketed copyrighted material privately, on site or remotely; to browse through publicly marketed copyrighted material; to experiment with variations of copyrighted material for fair use purposes, while preserving the integrity of the original; to make or have made for them a first generation copy for personal use of an article or other small part of a publicly marketed copyrighted work or a work in a library"s collection for such purpose as study, scholarship, or research; and