Professor Ulrich is preparing a website on a historical perspective of economics as applied to software development: how software pricing has evolved over the last three decades. The site, organized around a 30-year timeline, will be used as a reference for regular and online classes, and Ulrich hopes the site will also eventually attract broad general academic attention.
Ulrich has been gathering materials from the Internet for half the 30-year period: images, graphs, charts, outlines, product reviews, summaries of particular topics, biographical notes, pricing data, and even a few modest java applet simulations. He also has lots of material that came from print sources: catalogs, newspapers, trade-press magazines and professional journals, etc, both articles and advertisements, which he has long ago scanned in or typed in or redid with a drawing program.
Ulrich's goal is to include as many original sources as possible. One of Ulrich's theses is that software prices are influenced by the perception that the technology is "glamourous"; he feels that only the original language can convey these attitudes.
Ulrich is not sure how to proceed regarding copyright. On the one hand, he reasons that all the materials were found on the web or in print, and so their original authors certainly intended to make them public. He is using the material for educational purposes, and his use of the material is completely unrelated to its original purpose. On the other hand, most of the material was inarguably produced by others.
Ulrich has considered asking for permission, but he knows from past experience that in many cases his requests will likely either be ignored or he will receive a form letter telling him that he can license the material for a standard fee for which he has absolutely no budget. Ulrich also knows that many of the original sources are no longer in business.
Discuss the following in a paper: