Re: Reporter faked the news.

["James Tobin" <RJT@gml.lib.uwm.edu>]

Your first claim may well have the law supporting it; I don't know.  And
your subsequent concern surely has the force of a moral and--I hope--legal
right to privacy.  But I am not at all sure that "they don't owe it to
society to maintain it,"  in reference to actually published work.  Once
something is said, or published, publicly, it is "on the record."  It
cannot be unsaid, only "disowned."  And even legally, under US copyright
law, at least, a "fair use" level of quotation, or actual ownership of a
physical copy of a published work, cannot be taken away.

R. James Tobin
Collection Development Manager
U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries

>>> C.Oppenheim@lboro.ac.uk 5/15/2003 5:11:31 PM >>>

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