Re: [dvd-discuss] Power play

["John Zulauf" <johnzu(at)ia.nsc.com>]

One ponders:  Isn't a "legal disclaimer" held to some standard of "we
hold this to be true under penalty of perjury" or similar.  How can it
be that a publisher can make assertions about rights they don't have
with incurring some liability for lying to the public.

Perhaps this is an FTC matter.  The FTC cared that monitor makers were
claiming '17" monitor' for a 15.9" visible model.  Claiming perpetual
rights over a public domain work is as least equally misleading.  The
consumer harm is that they have been misinformed of their rights w.r.t.
the product they have purchased.  The customer may believe that they
don't have the right to photocopy the whole of the work for a friend, or
cut the binder and feed it into the scanner/copier/network printer at
the office.  Instead they may believe the only way to give a friend a
copy is to buy one from the self-declared licensee.  This is fraud --
the intent to decieve for financial gain.

Imagine if Lego were to publish "these plans are licensed only for use
with Lego(tm) brand building blocks" (with no termination date) on the
construction plans included in a set of Legos.  Or if this same (public
domain book) stated that it could only be read by Sylvania lightbulbs. 
All of these assertions are bogus, but may impact the end users spending
(and thus consumer) behavior as much as a mislabeled montior.

"D. C. Sessions" wrote:

> In place of the usual copyright notice, they simply have
> "All rights reserved.  Reproduction or any other use of
> this book without the publisher's written permission is
> strictly prohibited."
> 
> No copyright notice or date, just the assertion that the
> book and "any use" requires prior arrangements.  Looks
> like they're already setting up for EULAs on books, with
> "forever minus a day" control even over stuff that never
> was under US copyright!