Re: "UNIX In Plain English" by Kevin Richard & Eric F. Johnson,MIS Press. (Reading List HOWTO)

["David D.W. Downey" <ddowney codecastle com>]

Kevin Colby wrote:
> I have no idea what the authors' intentions are or were, but
> unless they specifically gave up their right to copy control,
> they own it.  _ANY_ distribution, online or otherwise, requires
> the explicit permission of the authors, and anyone distributing
> without their knowledge or against their wishes is fairly likely
> to get sued--and lose.
> 

Not true. If they have released it out in HTML format or any type of
format onto the internet WITHOUT stating that there is a fee owed for
copying it OR stating that passing it out is illegal they have given
implicit rights to the public domain to do as they wish with it. They
DO, however, retain copyrights and ownership of the intellectual
property rights for said material. They MUSt, however, state any
limitations regarding coppying or reproduction of the material. I know
this to be true as I have already faced a legal battle over this for
something *I* wrote when i was younger.

> If anyone feels like passing books around, you had better check out
> exactly what the authors allow or you may end up owing them a lot
> more than $14.95.  If anyone doesn't like this, take it up in court.
> 

You are freely able to GIVE AWY the book to someone. Doing this, though,
means you give up ALL ownership rights to the book and are transfering
them to the new owner. If there are any warranties on the book (normally
there are not, but in the event of), they become null and void for the
new owner. It's sort of an incentive to keep the book. it is NOT illegal
though to give the book to someone UNLESS the owner physically
stipulates to the contrary in the book. This is another case of an
implicit right given to the general public. If it were any other way,
our countries libraries would be in severe trouble, as would the
donators.

-- 

David D.W. Downey   Red Hat Certified Engineer  Cert# 806100581800665 
Assistant Site Manager  http://www.LinuxNewbie.Com  Come on, join us!
Resume is online - http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=96113