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	Phil's Blogservations Wednesday, February 11, 2004 Posted by philgomes 12:30 PM Harlan Ellison's Misguided Copyright Fight Harlan Ellison's Misguided Copyright Fight Let me start this off right: I am a gigantic fan of Harlan Ellison's work. I own several anthologies, original works, and signed editions of his stories and razor-sharp opinion pieces. His writing has had as much an influence on mine as William S. Burroughs has, which is why you'll see them both on my "Heroes" pages. But his lawsuit against AOL just seems dumb. According to the AP by way of Techdirt, the Ellison case is back in the courts. Sure, every artist has the right to defend the ownership of his or her work. The fact that some 35-year-old drifter who still lives in Mom's basement (conjecture) took the time to scan and OCR Ellison's work to put it on the public Usenet is pretty deplorable. But Ellison's decision to take action against AOL just because the ISP was the means by which he discovered these pilfered works makes no sense. Sure, AOL took longer than DMCA statutes prescribe in order to respond and, perhaps, that put them in an actionable situation. Fine. They probably took that long because they were likely trying to see how they could possibly be culpable. Aside from the issue of access, AOL couldn't control the Usenet any more or less than I can. Does that make them guilty? Then there's the issue of actual harm. I mean, I search the Usenet religiously through Google, but I'm in the minority. My impression is that very few use the Usenet anymore. In several guest lectures for SFSU and one at GGU, I've asked for a show of hands as to how many students have used or even heard of the Usenet. I've gotten one hand raised in two years. This legal fight, while noble, just wasn't worth emptying the retirement fund. I hope Ellison will drop this and spend more time writing. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.