RE: More ethics... (long, of course)

[bryan -dot- westbrook -at- amd -dot- com]

It's not irrelevant because it is not the right of the copyright office to
judge what is valuable and what is not.  The creator of a document (or in
the case of most of us, the "corporate author" entity of our employers) has
a right to control distribution of that document.

Of course, it is good business sense to provide documentation to your
customers (and thankfully so, for our sakes), but it is not the prerogative
of the law to dictate that provision or to define its terms. To paraphrase
Ayn Rand, another person's need or desires does not create an obligation
upon your part to provide them with the products of your mind.

I used to write poetry and was published in several small press "zines" back
in the late 80's/early 90's.  There is no financial value to what I wrote --
as far as money goes I made a grand total of about a buck in all that time
-- but its lack of a price tag does not give you or anybody else a right to
make copies of it and pass it around, no matter what your intentions might
be in the matter.

-----Original Message-----
From: KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com
[mailto:KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 2:11 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: FW: More ethics... (long, of course)

The fact that some law says our 
customers must not give away copies of my fabulous 
user manuals is irrelevant, because unless the 
people they GIVE them to also have our encryption 
token devices, our encryption accelerator systems, 
etc., the documents are just paper with ink on 'em.


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