RE: Reporter faked the news.

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Lawful distribution, I believe, is the key as to whether the author or
publisher has future rights of complete destruction. Before you broadcast
or distribute it, that's quite different. Publishers and author's
certainly have tried to supress what they've published, by destroying or
recalling editions with errors, mistakes, changes, etc. However if a
single physical copy is acquired lawfully, it is no longer the publisher's
or authors or copyright owner's to do with as they please. Should it be
different in electronic distribution media?

Chuck Hamaker


-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Oppenheim
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: 5/15/03 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Reporter faked the news.

Surely anyone who owns copyright in a work has the right to destroy that
copyright work.  They don't owe it to society to maintain it.  There have
been many cases where famous literary figures have destroyed their own
drafts or personal notes, or have requested that such documents be
destroyed on their death.  I shudder to think how one can introduce, let
alone police a law that required that (say) everything I ever wrote must
never be destroyed.

Professor Charles Oppenheim
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU
01509-223065
(fax) 01509-223053