AOL and Ellison Kiss and Make Up

[Eric Cordian]

You may remember back in 2000, former literary icon turned copyright pest
Harlan Ellison sued AOL because people were able to access a couple of his
short stories in the Usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book, prompting AOL to
block the newsgroup on its servers.

This earned Ellison a Big Brother award, which he no doubt keeps next to his
Hugo for ""'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," a story about slavery
to punctuality and mindless conformity.

At the time, I said that if Harlan would send me an address, I would be more
than happy to send him money everytime I read one of his stories on the
Internet for free.

AOL originally got a summary judgment dismissing Harlan's claims, but Harlan
appealed, and the summary judgment was partially reversed, leaving open the
possibility of a trial in which AOL would have to defend its role as a
"passive conduit" for Internet data.

Well, it now appears the parties have reached a settlement, and a joint
press release has been issued, in which Ellison opines...

  <<"Through this litigation, I have come to realize that AOL
   respects the rights of authors and artists, and has a comprehensive
   system for addressing the complaints of copyright holders. I would not
   have settled this case if I were not sure that AOL is doing what it can
   do to fight online piracy. Because not all Internet service providers
   are as responsible as AOL, and because individual acts of online piracy
   continue, I am glad to have called attention to the problem of online
   piracy through this litigation. As promised, I will be repaying every
   cent of the monies contributed to the KICK Internet Piracy Fund by
   writers and readers.">>

You can read the whole blurb at...

http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/cb_press_view.cfm?release_num=55254033

Harlan still doesn't get that it was not a useful thing to get an entire
newsgroup blocked over four of his stories, and that like the xeroxing of
paperback books, his unhappiness is best addressed not by jackbooted
persecution of copyright violators, but by making the works widely available
at a reasonable price so people will not have an incentive to reproduce them
by other means.

Perhaps we can all donate to a fund to buy Harlan a clue.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"