Re: favor

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Thu, 23 Dec 1999 20:55:23 -0500

At 4:26 PM -0500 on 12/23/1999, you wrote:

> http://slf.gweep.net/~sfoskett/jds/stories/books.html
>
> So this page has no connection to the mailing list?  If I were you I sure
> would try to get disassociated with it as fast as you can, seeing how
> strongly you feel about copyright issues.

Thank you for your advice.

Correct, this list is unrelated to the main Salinger home page of
which you speak.  It happens that people get pointed here from there,
on occasion, just as we point people there.  I myself am happy to
have pointers to us from outside.  It's more likely to get us
additional subscribers.  (I should point out gently that this
activity is not a profit-making venture, and that I myself simply get
a kick out of how many people join and from where in the world they
come.  And I stay for the conversation.)

> Some changes took place when Ober and his boys got wind of this, right?

Not here, no.  Actually, the fellow at Harold Ober has been very
pleasant for me to deal with, and since we try to keep on the legal
side of the fence here, he's never had to bear down on us on this
list, and he knows that.  We're pretty much self-enforcing.

> And you don't do ALL you can to respect the writer's wishes. I think there
> seems to be good reason to think that Salinger would not want any information
> at all about himself on the Internet. Or mailing list messages archived  on
> the Internet. So, you pick and choose which wishes you choose to respect.

I don't KNOW all Salinger's wishes, but I do know that he has
explicitly forbidden the reproduction of his un- or under-published
work, and I know by reading the verso of his title pages the
boilerplate: "All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any electric or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages in a review."  For the rest, I look to the
U.S. rule of fair use (see clarifications of this at the Cornell
Legal Information Institute, on the web at:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html) when I write
something that quotes from anyone's copyrighted material.

This is pointed out at the archive mailing list in the "welcome" message.

Salinger's agents and legal people cannot forbid our DISCUSSION of
the writer or his work here, and I strongly suspect that if Salinger
wanted this to stop, we would have heard about it a long time ago, or
they would have told me in conversation.  But it is doubtful that we
would be forced to stop.  If Salinger sent me a personal note
expressing the desire for this mailing list to stop, or for the
archive to vanish, well, I'd have to deal with that request at that time.  I
have not ever heard of his desire not to be discussed, on paper, by
voice, or in electrons.

> Pictures of JD Salinger that have been published are not HIS work.

I guess I didn't make things as explicit as I could have.  It's not
so much about *Salinger's* work; it's about honoring the concept of
ownership of intellectual property.  If you went out and grabbed a
picture from the Bettmann Archives (a/k/a www.corbis.com), and put it
on your web page, you'd have Bill Gates's lawyers at your heels
eventually, with a cease-and-desist order demanding that you remove
the picture.

I certainly do not want to see this turn into a nasty turn of events,
so I'd rather start from scratch.  How about, since you just joined,
if you hang around a bit and see the culture of this list and then
contribute in your own way?

That way, I hope, no hard feelings.  OK?

--tim o'connor