[extropy-chat] Being Human: Readings from the President's Council on Bioethics

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Fri Mar 19 16:28:13 UTC 2004


> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Info, Bioethics (Bioethics)
> <Info at bioethics.gov>
> To: 'Jef Allbright' <jef at jefallbright.net>
> 
> Thank you for your interest in the works of the
> Council.
> 
> We regret to inform you that we have run out of
> copies of Being Human 
> due to the unforeseen demand for this publication.
> Unfortunately, our 
> copyright agreements prevent us from posting the
> book on our website or 
> from printing further copies at this time.

Hmm.  My initial instinct is to take this at face
value: they believe - rightly or wrongly, probably
wrongly - that somewhere along the line, they made a
binding agreement only to produce X number of copies.
Said agreement automatically implies the document
isn't to go up on the Web, since that would
effectively make unlimited copies.

I suspect that, if you look through all the laws,
even if they did make such an agreement, it's null and
void: a government entity like they are is not allowed
to make this sort of agreement in the first place.
But that's just my suspicion, from having seen similar
information snarls in other government agencies.



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