English as a lingua franca

[Paul Frank]

Yesterday I posted a language-related newspaper article and was given the
following friendly (though unsigned) legal advice by one Ittaob at AOL.COM:

> Just some friendly legal advice-- it's not a good idea to
> republish the full text of a copyrighted article to such a large
> list as ADS-L.

I replied:

"Really? I'm a member of a bigger list than ADS-L in which copyrighted
articles are posted all the time. I did not post the Times article for
personal profit but simply because I thought that a few people on this list
might be interested. And anyhow, I live a million miles away from the United
States."

Mark Odegard responds:

> >Paul Frank
> >Business, financial and legal translation
> >From German, French, Chinese, Italian,
> >Spanish and Portuguese into English
> >Thollon-les-Memises, France
> >paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
>
> Then we can say, Paul, that you (and your clients) have no objection
> whatsoever to seeing anything and everything you translat being posted to
> the net, without permission, and without payment of any sort whatsoever.

All I can say is that quoting a language-related article in a small
electronic forum focused on the scholarly and not-for-profit (and downright
unprofitable) discussion of language issues is not, to my limited knowledge,
an infringement of copyright. What if I had added the blurb "Posted under
the Fair Use doctrine of International copyright law. See, for instance,
http://liiwarwick.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html"? I've seen such
disclaimers in other Internet forums. As far as I can tell, this is what it
boils down to: "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by
reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by
that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting,
teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright." Then again, maybe I've been
corrupted by French food and wine and the French attitude to law and
pettifoggery and deserve to full might of the Law to fall on my little head.

Paul
--
Paul Frank
Business, financial and legal translation
>From German, French, Chinese, Italian,
Spanish and Portuguese into English
Thollon-les-Memises, France
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu