Correct, it does not. There are a lot of nuances and differentiating factors when it comes to legal issues, and it's difficult to cover all of them in a forum such as this.
I don't know why you think this or where you got this idea, but it is simply not correct, at least not under copyright law and other intellectual property laws. Whatever you determine "good manners" to encompass, that is not relevant to legal disputes. There is no law against being a jerk.
And just in terms of general contract principles, think of the situation that would result if I could unilaterally write up whatever terms I want, then send those terms to someone, and if they didn't respond it would result in a binding agreement. I'll send a letter to TOR. I have a novel I want you to publish, and I want a million dollar advance. If I don't hear back from you within three months, we have a binding publication agreement. Clearly this idea leads to some ridiculous results. But sending a request for permission and taking a non-response as permission doesn't even meet the basics for contract formation (and when you secure permission to use a work, you're basically talking about a contractual arrangement).
The copyright holder does indeed have exactly that right. Imagine that you had already asked, and they had already said no. In six months, would you send them an email saying, "I'm going to assume that you've changed your mind and you will now give me permission to use your song. If you don't respond saying that that is not true, I will take that as tacit acceptance of my using your song." You wouldn't do that, right? You would accept that their initial answer, of "no" was now the default answer and that without further action FROM THEM, it would remain the answer. That you don't get to decide, for them, how long their answer is effective and precisely how, and how often, they have to communicate the answer in order for it to remain effective. That is exactly the position that you're in now. By default, the answer is "no" unless and until THEY take action to make it yes. That's how copyright law works.
If I send you an email asking your permission to publish excerpts from your book and you don't reply, can I go ahead regardless? Would you be happy? I doubt it. I use some Pogues lyrics in my book. I emailed the writer and he emailed back permission to use his words - great I thought. A few weeks ago the guy died so not sure where that leaves me but I would imagine you need to get some sort of permission.
Wow! You're like 90? I'm 60. Kiddo? Thanx, Grams @Steerpike, I think you are beating a dead hearse. I've already stated I'm not that uneducated. I'm not Black or Oran or Steven Starke (Harvard) nor do I know every US code, but I'm no stranger to filing litigations either. Fact is I do lose most of my cases, but during one injunction hearing in our original circuit court, the judge and I started discussing why I felt I had the right to use the title "Doctor." I explained a bit about some of my frustrating dealings with NASA and their food chain and how a major discovery I made through theory about our G2 star, Sol went not only unrewarded, but the credit given elsewhere. My theory was effectively proven (imagine that) by SOHO in 2005. I gave this judge, whose minor was linguistics, the universe in 30 seconds. After a short silence he said "I believe you are a very intelligent man. Yes. I will call you Doctor." I didn't get my injunction and lost my house to a swindler and an unruly magistrate who I didn't even know was a magistrate then. That circuit court judge educated me about that calling the magistrate a flunky. I walked out of there with no house and I'm not certain what else, but since that I've used the title and it is honored by more than one MD, judge and other professional around this city of 30,000 people. I tell them the truth about the title if time allows and it usually does. They know me. You don't. If you're an attorney, I respect that. I think your comparison of a million dollar tacit agreement is absurd as an argument, still I know what you mean. I think I already said I have a lot of work to do on the illustrations. Two years, so that gives me plenty of time to decide my direction. I will probably do a lot of case research in the meantime. As of now it looks easier just to write my own songs for it and two years of fixed income can amount to a decent recording studio which I know how to use as well as a variety of instruments. Still, you should know as well as anyone that judicial opinions and precedents vary from state to state. What flies in California is dismissed in Indiana. It would be interesting to see an opinion on this from an attorney in each of 50 states. It's more important to get the work published at about the right time. Sci-fi, black comedy drama or not, it carries an important message, but it needs a couple more years of climate change torture before people will want to hear it. As of now the songs are on the way to the cemetery as long as there's a mechanic in the procession.
Where did this misconstruction come from? If they said "No," they said "No." Highlight text. Right click. Delete.
If I was so rude as to ignore you, I'd deserve it. Might not be happy, but I'd have to blame my negligence, not your assumption that all was okay.
I get that, I just imagine pop-stars get tons of email and reply to very few. Could they just say in court they never got your request? Maybe it landed in their spam filter and disappeared? I hope you get your permission and avoid trouble
You apparently didn't read the entirety of my post. My point is that the default, by law, is that the answer is "no." The property owner has no obligation to re-state that no; the law has stated it for him. I can't email someone, "I would like to hold my wedding in your back yard. If you don't respond, I will take that as your tacit agreement." I can't email someone, "I would like to borrow your car for a trip to Disneyland. If you don't respond, I will take that as your tacit agreement." I can't email someone, "I would like to use your lawn furniture for my party. If you don't respond, I will take that as your tacit agreement." If you start setting up folding tables in the garden, drive off in the car, or carry off the lawn furniture, the law is highly unlikely to respect your "tacit agreement" argument. Property owners are property owners. They are not required to entertain or respond to requests to use their property.
I am wondering if this is California brand law again. Adverse possession occurs quite a bit around the country with the filing of an affidavit of such. Once the owner becomes aware of it, even to the extent that when being filed with the clerk that owner will be notified, there is a limitation on how much time it can be ignored before the squatter can be awarded the title. Here, if we mow a piece of abandoned property for 5 years, we file a common law lien, which is sent to the owner, and if a year goes by with it ignored the mower is awarded the title. Most states require about 15 years for adverse possession. Intellectual property is not tangible, so your examples are absurd. Even so, if it appears your lawn furniture is abandoned the laws of possession may vary, especially if you attempted to contact the owner and they ignored you. As I said, we are beating a dead hearse. It seems you may have just beat the injection manifold beyond all hope. We might have done okay with a good mechanic, but now we need a tow truck and should hope the latch on the tailgate is in good shape.
Yes, but it's still property. Why do you assume that you are entitled to use it, and that they're required to take action to make you stop? How is that different from your assuming that you're entitled to use their house or car? What makes intellectual property less "theirs"?
@erebh, I've pretty much decided to do the CG artwork till I'm happy with that for a while. I have another book I started that doesn't need any of that I may work on during it all. That is a good thought about the spam filter. Certified letters are tougher to ignore... I write songs, play lead or bass guitar, keyboards and drums. I can certainly improvise (no pun intended) Thanx for that thought. Also, thanx to ALL of you folks for setting me straight. The steam roller isn't needed... even at 60 I can outrun one of those... well, for a while anyway...
@ChickenFreak, I don't think that way. Their lawn chairs aren't popping out of the speakers of any transistor radio or laptop or tv on the planet though. If you leave your lawn chairs on my lawn long enough, I'll ask you if I can sit in them or maybe paint them a more suitable color. If you ignore me long enough, I'll keep a copy of my contact to you on the issue and probably do what I like with them or charge you for storage. Ever tried to get your car back from a mechanic if you failed to read the sign on his wall that inspections are a certain price? He has lien rights and the longer you leave the car unpaid for, the more storage charges build up. What's the difference if a musician leaves his work out there for someone with a good receiver to record the program and subsequently his piece? The station already paid for it once. Why should I pay for it again? I wanted the DJ's voice. I didn't want his piece. There's a degree where "No" means "Yes." Should we call it radio rape? We go to a website and suddenly we have a spyware drive-by download. We say "No." It's forced upon us anyway without our consent. Same for email spam. Just because someone made it big, they can force the bit on us but we can't do it back? If we want to get rid of Google, we have to go up on top of their building and paint a giant insult to Kim Jong Il that can be seen on Google Earth.
> If you leave your lawn chairs on my lawn long enough On *your* lawn. This song is not cluttering up your property. > What's the difference if a musician leaves his work out there for > someone with a good receiver to record the program and subsequently > his piece? The difference is that the song is not on your property. It's on airwaves (owned by the government and licensed by the radio station) and you can choose to tune in and hear it. Claiming that its availability is like it being stored on your property is not unlike checking books out from the library, refusing to return them, and then trying to claim that the library is forcing you to store their property. > The station already paid for it once. Why should I pay for > it again? ....because the station paid for it, not you? Why does the fact that Party X paid for something entitle Party Y to take ownership of it? Your next door neighbor paid the mortgage or rent for their home; why don't you move in there? > I wanted the DJ's voice. I didn't want his piece. There's a > degree where "No" means "Yes." Should we call it radio rape? You don't own the airwaves. You are not forced to tune the radio to the station in question. The song is not, in any way, being forced on you. > We go to > a website and suddenly we have a spyware drive-by download. We say > "No." It's forced upon us anyway without our consent. And this has nothing whatsoever to do with you taking someone's song. If the owner of the spyware were to turn around and sue you for having their software on your drive, after they put it there, you'd have a defense. But that's not relevant to the issue of you using copyrighted material that you want and that is not forced on you. > Same for email > spam. Just because someone made it big, they can force the bit on us > but we can't do it back? Is the email spammer the owner of the intellectual property that you want to use? If not, then why is this relevant? > If we want to get rid of Google, we have to > go up on top of their building and paint a giant insult to Kim Jong Il > that can be seen on Google Earth. No, all you have to do is change your home page to something other than Google. So in an earlier post you conceded that: 'If they said "No," they said "No."' It's customary for copyright holders to mark their intellectual property with a notice stating "Copyright (whoever). All rights reserved." How is this not a pre-emptive "no"? Why doesn't it apply to you?
Sheesh. Here is Exhibit A of analogies that do not apply. Nobody is leaving their lawn chairs on your lawn. And charging for storage? Are you suggesting that anybody who hears a song on the radio gets to charge the artist for listening to their song? The artist is not requiring you to listen and there is no contract that you do so. If there was a contract, the artist could demand that you not turn off your radio, and if you do, he could sue you for not listening to his song. Ridiculous, right? And if you take your car to a mechanic, he doesn't get to charge you for just saying "Hey, nice car." He actually has to work on it before he can charge you, and that work has to be agreed to, in advance, by you. This is completely unlike just hearing a song on the radio. I don't know where that last statement came from, but you have to understand that there are laws governing the use of music by radio stations. There are also laws governing the use of music by the listeners of those radio stations regardless of whether those listeners are aware of the laws or not. Look up copyright law. There is no degree where "no" means "yes."
Ohhhhh so wrong. I have msnbc and Outlook will not let me block Google or even gmail. My choice? Don't log on at all. Some web hosts will not properly set their servers to avoid spam on your domain. If Googlebots spam you to the point of overloading their server, they blame you and terminate your account. Look, folks. I do not believe I simply have the right to use lyrics in my book without permission. I simply asked opinions about tacit agreement. Some have been treating me like I'm an ignorant child, yet I'm still the bad guy here. I agree now that it's a bad idea to attempt a tacit agreement. I certainly don't want the expense of having to travel to CA to fight a legal battle. The hearse is in shambles. The coffin has slipped out of the back and the cadaver is thumbing its way out of the whole mess. I don't need to win. I'm not that much of a narcissist. Anyone who wants can have the last word. I regret even starting this thread.
Did you actually wrote such a letter or are you just thinking out loud? I don't get it from you posts... And if you did: to whom did you send it? hopefully not the official fan-club webmaster @ChickenFreak piratebay will never die...
I'm not going to go into the legalities because I don't know them, but here is a good rule of thumb. I'm a fourth year business management student so this is how I look at it through my lens. If you don't own it ask permission, if they say Yes you may use it in the context you asked for it. If they say no, do not reply and/or if you do not get written permission (in addition to possible vocal consent) You can not and should not use it. This protects you, your work, and other peoples hard earned work.
@DrWhozit Do you know that for sure? I'm not putting a scan of my diploma to an internet forum just to show off... Steerpike is, allegedly, a lawyer
Key phrase "I don't see..." Regardless, I wouldn't hire him/her. No guts? No glory. Let's imagine I just flipped off the standard precedent. (Be duly advised, I wouldn't do this unless I wanted to make a point to the legal world...) Let's say I self published my book, sent out certified letters of request to the proper addresses, receiving happy blessings from some, declination from others, offers of paid license from others and, last but likely not least, ignorance from others. Let's say they were all signed for or refused. In the end, I self publish a book using what I feel has been permitted, including a tacit agreement or two, clearly acknowledging the whole circumstance as such, offering to amend any future edition where the "tacits" decided to complain. Bona fide attempts to do it all the right way without losing my schedule. Let's say after all my efforts, I have a best seller. Suddenly the "tacits" come at me with suits filed in their states against me in mine. I do what they did; nothing. They win. Finally the judgment comes to me in my state. I wait for all to happen and even execution to be threatened. I file bankruptcy. I keep my house and my tools. They get rights to the book's royalties and sell most everything else I have, which would likely be zilch. I got famous as a bad boy who tried to buck stupidity that some lawyers cashed in on and my book sells billions of copies. What did I gain? (I would have gained quite a bit in reality... maybe even a treasure trove buried somewhere.)
@DrWhozit yeah, yeah... so you didn't actually wrote that email... I love all these "let's suppose this flower is a doorbell" discussions
Oh, come now... please smell my corsage No. This is all hypothetical. I don't do wrote or rote. Once in a while I write.
@DrWhozit now that you mentioned it, I can't take back or edit that awfully bad grammatical mishap...not that I'd care enough to bother anyway So, aren't Frank Zeppelin the official (?!) tribute band? do they play their own stuff?
