February 10, 2000

12:18 PM

So a few days ago, I went off on some resume sites going out and pilfering my resume off my personal site. Well, I opted out of passportaccess.com, and here is their response. My favorite part: "Once you post your resume or any sort of material on the internet it becomes public information and therefore, can be spread from site to site very quickly." Uh, excuse me? Since when did "public information" equal "copyright-free and we can do anything we want with it?"
posted by mathowie (5 comments total)

yea right. and then why did they remove it? if its public information and does move from site to site so very quickly then you would think they wouldnt even offer and opt out because the more resumes they have, the 'better' site they have.

want some quick money? go hunt down someone studying law at ucla and ask them about it. threaten them with a lawsuit hahahaha.
posted by sikk at 12:29 PM on February 10, 2000

Yeah, something is wrong there..very wrong. If that was true, anything you create whether it be images or whatever are 'public domain'...I don't think so.
posted by Mark at 2:44 PM on February 10, 2000

That is. Absolute. Bullshit.

Copyright law protects original works. Doesn't matter if it's a scribble on a napkin or a resume on a website.

Grr.
posted by fraying at 4:34 PM on February 10, 2000

There's a not-subtle difference between "public information" and "public property". Rights of access aren't rights of reproduction, and certainly not rights of ownership: ask the Linux DVD people about that one.

Get a copyright lawyer to tell passportaccess.com about it.
posted by holgate at 6:38 AM on February 11, 2000

I just spoke with Larry Vitatoe at Passport Access, and he recommended emailing him with our comments ([e-mail]), and he will make sure that they get to the right people.

The summary of our conversation: he said that they check every resume for a copyright symbol. I explained that that's not how copyright works; every original work is automatically copyrighted, with or without the symbol. He said that they only check for the symbol. We went in circles. He finally recommended we email him, so I recommend that we all do so.
posted by delfuego at 2:41 PM on February 11, 2000