Re: [syndication] Copyright and Syndication

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Daniel Doc?ekal <ddoc@mia.cz> wrote:

> Whole business of syndication rises and falls on one condition - that one
> who you are "harvesting" does have nothing against this - by law you are on
> edge of copyright protection with the fact of continuous harvesting and
> using that derivate for other purposes.

In the US we have the "fair use" clause, allowing us to use copyrighted
material for some purposes. I believe that syndication would fall under the
fair use clause, but I don't believe the issue has ever gone to the courts.

A relevant precedent is the eBay Vs. Bidder's Edge case where the judge
recently ruled that the Bidder's Edge robot "trespassed" on eBay's property
by crawling it's site. If this decision stands it would likely mean that
syndication without the permission of the creator is not OK. I guess that
would mean it's time to move to HavenCo. :-)

-- 
        Aaron Swartz         |"This information is top security.
<http://swartzfam.com/aaron/>|     When you have read it, destroy yourself."
  <http://www.theinfo.org/>  |             - Marshall McLuhan