Draft releases

[Norman Diamond]

In article <21787 at news.Think.COM> barmar at kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes:

<about why the standard won't be posted on-line>

>Because the publisher, who makes money by selling it, has the
>exclusive distribution rights.

My impression is that this was the purpose of copyrights and publishers.
But what do we do when the publisher refuses to sell copies?  It's hard
to see how the publisher makes money by not selling it.  It's hard to
see how they can claim lost profits when copies are given to recipients,
when the publisher refused to sell to those recipients in the first
place.  (Anyone know what copyright law says in such a case?)

--
--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.co.jp at relay.cs.net)
  The above opinions are my own.  However, if you're reading this at Waterloo
  or Stanford, then their administrators must have approved of these opinions.