Re: [ontology-summit] Summit Website

[Simon Spero <sesuncedu@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think some people may be misremembering the precise import of 17 USC § 105:

Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

Definitions are provided  in  § 101: 

A "work of the United States Government" is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties.

  

Under § 204, 

(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.

But even if we were to assume arguendo that the material in question were not subject to copyright, access to the materials stored and maintained on computer machinery owned and operated by CIM Engineering in the state of California,  in violation of a license agreement governing access to those materials would seem to be "exceed[ing] authorized access[...] and obtain[ing] a thing of value".    The latter phrase should be familiar to anyone who works in Cybersecurity.   The reason for noting the California locus is the availability of the action of trespass to chattels in this state.

Posner has written extensively on the ability of licenses to efficiently replace the EU sui generis database copyright laws (introduced by the EU in response to Feist, as a kind of industrial policy to promote the growth of a domestic industry of databases of mere facts. This worked as well as most industrial policies.

I am not a lawyer, nor did I stay at a holiday inn express last night.  

Simon 

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Peter Yim <peter.yim@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Brand,


Please do not try to create distractions.

What does your telling Jerry Smith in a DoD meeting, or your telling
anyone else at any other setting have to do with the matter at hand?
... If it were a government legal counsel giving an official opinion
on this specific case, it would definitely merit attention. If it were
just your opinion that you had expressed to someone else under some
setting, please spare me; and, kindly try not use to distract the
members of this community, I trust they are in a position to discern.

By the way, I am sure basic decency and respect for others' rights are
within the expectation of any event I or members of the Ontolog
community have a part in co-organizing. Having government agencies
among the co-organizers does not change or put a waiver on those
values and expectations.

Please also note that you took the material from the Ontolog website,
where very clearly stated licensing arrangements have been posted. As
such, you are expected to abide by those copyright/licensing
arrangements.

If you took the same published material, say, from a government agency
website, and if it doesn't specify any restrictions, then you may
safely assume the material is in the public domain. However, the
latter is not the case here.

Therefore, if anyone should apologize, it is my humble opinion that
you should apologize to the authors of the OntologySummit2012
Communique ... even after you had gone ahead comply with the use
license or choose to take the material down.


Regards. =ppy
--


On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Brand Niemann <bniemann@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Peter, I just spoke with Jerry Smith in a DoD meeting we were both in and
> told him that I am informed that because this was a government-sponsored and
> -hosted event your content claims do not have merit and interfere with my
> work, so I would ask for an apology. Best regards, Brand

> -----Original Message-----
> From: peter.yim@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:peter.yim@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter
> Yim
> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 12:09 PM
> To: Brand Niemann
> Cc: Ontology Summit 2012 discussion
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Summit Website
>

> Brand,


> Leo Obrst, our Ontology Summit general chair has already notified you, on
> 15-Apr-2012, ref.
> http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/2012-04/msg00081.html
> that,
> //
> Until you have made proper attribution to our work, and clearly state on
> your website that your work is also openly shared under OPL v1.0 or (cc
> by-sa 3.0), please remove our Summit content from your website.
> //
> [ while the summit content on the OntologWiki is licensed under OPL
> v1.0 or (cc by-sa 3.0), work from the OntologySummit2012 website is
> specifically license under (cc by-sa 3.0) ]
>
> To date, you have not been responsive to that request yet, nor have you
> taken down the content from your MindTouch : Semanticommunity.info
> : AOL Government site.
>
> I can still see our OntologySummit2012 website content, copied word-for-word
> on your site, but have yet to see proper attribution, and the site license
> from MindTouch, and/or Semanticommunity.info and/or AOL Government stating
> that they operates under the (cc by-sa
> 3.0) open content license.
>
> I personally think that this is very unprofessional of you to use our
> material and disregard our IPR. You went ahead and copied the
> ontology-summit team's work-in-progress without their consent; and worse,
> despite the author's specific request to you to hold off until we publish,
> you went ahead and published that on your site even before our team has
> released that work and publish it themselves. This is not the kind of
> behavior we expect from "trusted members" of the community at all.
>
> PLEASE STOP YOUR INFRINGEMENT.
>
>
> Thanks & regards. =ppy
> Peter Yim
> --


> On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Brand Niemann <bniemann@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Thank you. I looked at your work and think it is similar to what I am
>> trying to do:
>>
>> http://semanticommunity.info/AOL_Government/Ontology_Summit_2012_Commu
>> nique#Ontology
>
>

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