Re: [h2o-discuss] Fatbrain

[John Kwasnik <jkwasnik@jps.net>]

 [From: Alex Chudnovsky <b9678050@wlv.ac.uk>:]

>Now this is interesting, how would Fatbrain know the copyright has 
>expired? What if someone would like to play dirty, scan and recognize 
>some copyrighted work, then pretend it's not copyrighted, then Fatbrain 
>sells it and gets a nice little suit against them. I think they risk a 
>LOT and would abandon that idea (or require some nasty manual process 
>to prove uploaded work is not copyrighted) after the first legal 
>problems they encounter.

        [It's truly amazing ... all the bizarre ideas that people are coming
up with for SOME kind of dot-com startup.  I haven't checked the Fatbrain
site, but it sounds like a variant on the online-auction idea, with a new
wrinkle:  online consignment vanity publishing.]

        In the U.S., at least, thanks to the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act, Fatbrain would be immune from any lawsuits arising from
copyright-infringing content of its clients' work.  Fatbrain need only claim
ignorance of the infringement, and remove the allegedly infringing content
from its service, if necessary.

        So my guess is that it would be REALLY unlikely that Fatbrain would
employ staff or pay consultants, in order to "clear" its published content
of any possible copyright/trademark/patent infringements (as most publishers
in traditional media WOULD do).  They are far better off NOT knowing, and
it's certainly cheaper.  

        So the question for prospective authors is what can Fatbrain do for
us, that we can't do for ourselves by opening our own websites?

                                     John Kwasnik