[Insight-users] About using information from the mailing list for the ITK Wiki

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi Lino,

Strictly speaking every subscriber to the mailing list owns the
copyright of the email they write. At least under U.S. laws.

In fact, anything you write is automatically copyrighted even if
you don't publish it. You will own the copyright for your lifetime
plus 70 years. So that translated in inheriting your copyright to
your kids and grand kids.

In most cases the copyright will actually be held by the employers,
in particular if users are doing this posting as part of their work,
or if they signed a copyright transfer agreement when they got hired.
(which is what commonly happens).

When copyright is owned by a company, it will be valid for 95 years
after the publication of the work, or if unpublished it will be valid
for 120 years after its creation.

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm


This is the result of Disney lobbying the U.S. congress for extending
the copyright protection for Micky Mouse. (yeap... It sounds funny):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act


Since emails are digital media, they are probably regulated
by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA


------------

For practical purposes, you shouldn't have any worries
about the copyrights of the text posted in emails to
the mailing list. Just feel free to copy the content
on the Wiki and edit it as appropriate.

Even under U.S. laws you are allowed to cite a piece
of work for the purpose of a review or a critique.
This is considered to be "fair use" of the copyrighted
material.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use


However, I'm not a lawyer...


What I could say is that somebody who post an email
to a public mailing list and comes later claiming
that her/his copyright has been infringed,...
well it has to be a very obnoxious person.

Hopefully we don't have that kind of subscribers in our list  :-)



Thanks for helping organizing the Wiki,


      Luis



BTW:
This email is covered by the
Creative Commons Attribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/      :-)


Which means that you can do anything with it as long as
you give credit to the author. This is the same license
that we are using for papers posted to the Insight Journal.



------------------
Lino Ramirez wrote:
> Hi Luis,
> 
> I have been adding some information to the Wiki Page
> (http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ITK_Image_Registration). So far, I have added
> some structure and have filled it out mainly with some information from
> the mailing list. Once I get enough information, I might start moving some
> information to new WebPages.
> 
> Now, about using the information from the mailing list:
> Can I just use it (including the link to the original posting, of course)?
> Or do I have to contact the person who made the posting asking for
> permission? Moreover, if I summarize the posting and combine them with my
> own opinion do I have to ask for permission?
> 
> In other words, I do not know who owns the copyright of the posting to the
> mailing list and I do not know what I am entitled to do with the
> information in the postings.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Lino
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Insight-users mailing list
> Insight-users at itk.org
> http://www.itk.org/mailman/listinfo/insight-users
> 
>