Of course, nothing is bullet proof as evidenced by the necessity for a Supreme Court
interpreting the laws of the land. With that in mind here's my proposal:
Before entry into any archives pages or at the very minimum posted on each page of data,
the following:
Fair Use definition and/or examples.
Statement of Copyright Notice
Proposed Fair Use: The information contained in these electronic page(s) may be freely
used for non-commercial purposes. The user should exercise good judgment on the Fair Use
of these materials and if doubt should read our Fair Use Page at
http://usgw.fairuse.html.
Proposed Copyright Notice: The submitter of these electronic page(s) has under the
current laws of the United States Copyright Laws for Intellectual Property Rights
submitted this material for use on USGW Archives and by individual users not associated
with the purposes of using said materials for commercial enterprise or mass redistribution
wherein said material is compromised of its protected rights. Users must comply with the
current Fair Use intepretation as specified by Copyright Specific laws of United States
Jurisdiction or the appropriate governing International Treaty.
Of course, this may be too verbose and originators of the statement could opt for
hyperlinks further defining the statement of specify the intent of the notice using a
reference specified by them.
I see the essential elements of a proposed standard as this:
(1) Fair Use Definition with corporately inacted reference number. In other words, put
the Fair Use Rule in USGW bylaws.
(2) Copyright Notice: A standard phrase that can be represented by the copyright sign,
phrase and/or logo that would give attention to itself as a notice.
(3) Copyright Statement: Elements of who the parties involved are:
(a) Submitter
(b) USGW
(c) User
Elements of who other parties are:
(d) Commercial Enterprises
(e) Mass Distributors or Redistributors
(f) Governing Bodies (U.S., State or International)
Elements of the statements included in the body of the notice.
(g) Establish the purpose of the electronic page(s)
(h) Establish the Intellectual Property Rights of the Submitter
(i) Establish the User Rights for republication under the Fair Use Clause.
Of course, no one said it would be easy in forming such a statement. It may take some
time and experimentation, discussion, etc. I would hope though that a satisfactory
statement could be developed that would satisfy the submitter that their rights are being
protected and the users Fair Use is being allowed.
thanks for listening,
James W. McCluer