Re: permissions help

Tom Condit (tomcondit@IGC.APC.ORG)
Sat, 30 Nov 1996 22:05:21 -0800 (PST)

In response to John Andrew's question, there is no one person or entity who
"owns the rights to SDS materials". Other than individually copyrighted,
signed material (which has a common law copyright), almost all such
materials were collectively produced, and those of us who produced them have
no ownership rights in them, neither does any other entity. They were, and
are, the property of "the movement". Anyone wanting to reproduce them for
political or historical purposes should do so. Anyone wanting to reproduce
them purely for private profit is subject to suit by any of several thousand
people who have collective "ownership rights." You can find them at the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Tamiment Institute Library (now
part of New York University) and in several other places, almost none of
which have anything approaching a complete collection. They may or may not
charge you for access, but they don't own them.

Tom Condit
former National Interim Committee member, SDS