Copyright protected books

Hi everybody,
Me going to start a forum for Engineering students that contains projects, seminars,e-books....But most of the books are copyright protected.
My friend said that there is no problem if i place a notice saying that "All the contents are only for Educational purpose only.You should delete it within 24 hours .If u like the book please buy it...."
Is it possible to upload a file by attaching this message?
Please reply......

Of course not, this kind of message doesn't have any legal value.

Copyright is a real problem today on internet :(
Even a picture can have copyright.

In reply to:
Is it possible to upload a file by attaching this message?

I think you should read the pages linked below very carefully before deciding whether to host these books.

http://www.dreamhost.com/tos.html

http://abuse.dreamhost.com/copyright/

Mark

Does the copyright or terms of us of the e-books allow you to post them on a website under any circumstances?

If you don't own the rights to distribute said content, then you're in violation of DreamHost's TOS.

In reply to:
Me going to start a site for engineering students that contains project,seminars,e-books.But most of the books are Copyright protected.Is it possible to upload such a file in dreamhost by attaching a message "all materials are only for educational purpose only.You should delete it within 24 hours"

Unless you have permission of the copyright holders to distribute those works, doing so remains in violation of U.S. and Berne Convention copyright law irrespective of any "disclaimer" you may attach regarding the "educational nature" of the file or exhortation to others to only "keep" the file for 24 hours.

--rlparker

Even education use does not give you the rights to legally copy entire books. And you definitely don't have permission to pass around multiple copies beyond your class - so providing it freely on the internet is certainly illegal.

Unless you have a written agreement with the copyright holder to reproduce and distribute copies of his or her work, it's illegal. If someone gives Dreamhost notice of this (S&D letter or DMCA) you account will be terminated without refund. So personally I wouldn't go there.

--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

How about GPL'ed books ? Can we download & publish them ?

In reply to:
How about GPL'ed books ? Can we download & publish them ?

There aren't too many GPL'ed books. There are some GFDL and lots of Creative Commons licensed ones though. And whether you can publish them and under what conditions is usually spelled out in the license, clearly :) There are also PLENTY of Public Domain books (think Project Gutenberg archive); though those are not likely to be relevant to today's engineering students :)

In reply to:
There are also PLENTY of Public Domain books (think Project Gutenberg archive); though those are not likely to be relevant to today's engineering students :)

Yeah... most - if not all - of the works from the project have outdated copyrights.

Hm, btw... where's the original poster ? I think those comments above are hefty enough to draw any comment from him tongue

T-T-L

In reply to:
Yeah... most - if not all - of the works from the project have outdated copyrights.

Technically their copyright has lapsed, so they have no copyrights attached -- they are in the public domain. Project Gutenberg takes that stuff VERY seriously, doing research on the exact dates the work in question went out of copyright to ascertain that they are not violating any (in the US, anyway; other countries have other laws, some quite different, though most are signatories to the Berne conventions).