From mfbowman@CapAccess.org Mon Apr 13 22:09:03 1998 Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 22:09:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michael F. Bowman" To: "David L. Eby" Subject: Re: Introduction to Scouts-L In-Reply-To: <35327060.D5C7FCC5@geocities.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Dave, Welcome to Scouts-L. Hope you enjoy and contribute to the discussions. You may enjoy visiting http://usscouts.org/profbvr/firecrafter/index.html for a look at the Firecrafter organization that I'm putting together. One of the projects that I've meant to get started on was a listing of all former honor camper associations for the U.S. Scouting Service Project website. It looks, however, like you've already really covered the ground. We've been looking to build up our collection of Scouting history pages. Would you be interested in being a contributor? We have a high volumn of visits and are always looking to improve our holdings. In the last couple of months our pages have received about a half million hits from visitors. Mike Speaking in | mfbowman@usscouts.org netcommish@aol.com the Scouting | The NetCommish http://members.aol.com/netcommish Spirit from | Professor Beaver Online - http://usscouts.org/profbvr/ Alexandria, VA| U.S. Scouting Service Project - http://usscouts.org From mfbowman@CapAccess.org Tue Apr 14 01:17:51 1998 Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 01:17:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michael F. Bowman" To: Rick Seymour Subject: Re: Copyright Law & Old BSA Materials? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980328163223.007c75e0@scouter.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Rick, I am a lawyer and also the webmaster for USSSP. In your posting (now several days old) you indicated that you were interested in publishing some of Hillcourt's old manuals via the web and if there were no copyright problems would put it on the USSSP server. You should be aware that the U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation chartered in the State of Missouri and as such separate and distinct from Scouter Magazine where you are a contributing editor. Each organization has a separate server for its primary web/Internet activity. We do have mutually supportive links and indices. Unlike our website, the USSSP FTP site is hosted on the scouter.com server but still is under the control of USSSP. The FTP site is now a mirror of content found at http://clipart.usscouts.org which includes both images and documents. Material may be added to this archive only by the archive administrators, Chris Marsey, Gary Hendra, and myself. We try to screen what is placed in the archive to assure that there are no copyright infringements and to make sure that it is consistent with Scouting values. Our archive started out originally as the Pluto ftp site in Dallas. When its owner was no longer able to maintain it, we stepped in and provided a new home for it. Since then much has been added. As we have grown we have also recognized that some contributions early on may have been subject to copyrights. As a result we have dropped some shareware, songs, stories, etc. from the archive to avoid infringing privately held copyrights. We are concerned not to infringe copyrights and will remove any material that would infringe a copyright where we do not have permission for its use. The exception to this is material which is copyrighted to scouting organizations which have allowed free distribution of materials. For example, BSA does allow Scouters to reproduce and distribute its materials for Scouting use. BSA is aware of our archive and has thus far not voiced any concern with it. In fact they have copies of our CD at National and are using it as a resource. With regard to books the general rule is that the copyright continues for fifty years after the death of the author. For that reason we are able now to reproduce books by B-P. Hillcourt's books may still be subject to copyright following this rule. I do not know whether the copyrights to the Hillcourt books are held by BSA or the Hillcourt estate. If the copyrights to the handbooks are held by BSA, then we probably could include them under the implicit permission granted by BSA for reproduction. Even so, I think I would like to have more explicit permission from BSA for something like an entire handbook. If the copyrights are held by the estate, then it would be up to the trustees including Terry Howerton to determine whether the books could be published. For example, the book Two Lives of A Hero is published by Terry under that copyright protection. With recent decisions regarding web content in the courts, it is becoming clear that contributors and web hosts can face liability for infringements. As a result, I am particularly sensitive to exercising care in adding material so as to avoid infringement. Mike Speaking in | mfbowman@usscouts.org netcommish@aol.com the Scouting | The NetCommish http://members.aol.com/netcommish Spirit from | Professor Beaver Online - http://usscouts.org/profbvr/ Alexandria, VA| U.S. Scouting Service Project - http://usscouts.org From mfbowman@CapAccess.org Tue Apr 14 01:49:23 1998 Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 01:49:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michael F. Bowman" To: Dave Loomis Subject: Copyrights In-Reply-To: <351EEACE.800@nh.ultranet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO X-Status: Dave, Please pardon me for not responding more swiftly. Seems I sometimes get behind the curve on e-mail when I have to be away a few days and it takes forever and a day to catch up. Your posting regarding copyrights was intriguing to me. Apparently you must do archival work for AOL's Scouting Forum, if I get the drift of what you were saying. Copyright issues are a bit thorny and often mixed with a lot of feeling, not always grounded in law. Which is to say that it can be a little complex to sort things out. Although the interpretation is far from universal, the prevailing opinion in law seems to be that postings to a public forum or discussion list made without an explicit reservation of rights are public domain and may be used by anyone without further permission. The theory is that the contributor is aware that his/her material will be available and will be used by others and thus grants it freely, unless he/she takes some step to alert others of an intent to reserve rights. The courts have been loath to find an implicit copyright, because to do so would vest any communication with restrictive rights and inhibit the free flow and exchange of ideas. Thus, it becomes imperative for an author to explicitly stake out a claim to copyright for it to have any hope of enforcement. Hence the necessity of using the (c) symbol to signify mat