RE: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm (strayed a bit)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]

>You're presuming a particular outcome of that
>debate though ... I'd say that anyone who's really
>internalized distinctions between different types of
>identifiers (addresses, names, paths, ...) it's quite
>clear that there are so many common practices that
>alleging one of them to be "common sense" is just a
>non-starting position.  The same identifier can be
>any of the above, depending on context and usage.

If they see "http://anything ", they click on it. 
The context is the browser and web user not privy 
to the abstractions of the specification.

>> The big issue is what a URI means with 
>> regards to the ownership of the definition 
>> of the information it identifies.  That 
>> comes back to the original thread topic 
>> where yes (despite claims to the contrary), 
>> the URI may be the assertion of the Copyright 
>> that sticks (hostile assertion of domain).

>Again you're presuming ... just because you call
>a table a book doesn't make it become one.

Perhaps a presumption.  But just because we 
call "http://anything" an identifier doesn't 
mean the courts aren't free to make it evidence 
of proprietary labeling and the asserting of 
ownership given that within the system in which 
it operates, it is presumed to be unique and 
therefore, the one assertion that meets the 
criteria of being capable of supporting that 
assertion.  "Quacks like a duck."  This 
doesn't make it right; it makes it useful 
and so far, utility has been the one argument 
used to support the URI definition: it is 
convenient.

Again, an issue of the authority to choose a 
choice.  In this case, the W3C and IETF aren't 
the authorities.

>I have the feeling Alice must have had when talking to
>Humpty Dumpty.  Sure, go ahead and assert whatever
>you want.  These issues haven't been litigated, and are
>unresolved (THAT was the original issue) except that
>Internet standards disagree with what you asserted.

*Private consortia cannot make law*.  You are falling 
off the wall and the king's men can put you together 
again, but perhaps they won't.  By choosing to sit 
on the wall, you assumed the risk.

len