> if you ignore the technical legal points, am I really harming anyone
> In my opinion, it's helping.
Have you talked this over with Paul Graham (the copyright holder)? Because if you have, and he agreed that it was fine for you to post this to Medium then you are NOT violating copyright law. On the other hand, if you DIDN'T ask him, then YOU are assuming for yourself the right to decide whether this is or isn't "harming anyone" without asking Paul.
Perhaps he is in the middle of negotiations with an advertiser for his site who knows that it has valuable old essays that can't be found on places like Medium. Or perhaps Paul counts on old essays to help establish his reputation, even though he doesn't directly make money from them. These are unlikely, but my point is that YOU DON'T KNOW.
This isn't a case of "ignoring the technical legal points", it is a case of "directly violating the law"! And for good reason -- I may quibble with the length of copyright, but I strongly believe that the basic rights granted by copyright are mostly correct in this situation. I think it SHOULD be up to the author to decide where to publish it and where not to.
Good news though. Even if you DIDN'T get Paul's permission before publishing, copyright law is flexible enough that you may STILL be OK. Specifically, it is not a crime to violate copyright, so you can't be sent to jail over this and you can't be prosecuted by some overzealous District Attorney. Instead, Paul (the copyright holder) has the right to sue you. If he's feeling nice (which he probably is) then he won't.
But stop just copying people's stuff. It's not OK, both legally AND (in my opinion) morally.
> In my opinion, it's helping.
Have you talked this over with Paul Graham (the copyright holder)? Because if you have, and he agreed that it was fine for you to post this to Medium then you are NOT violating copyright law. On the other hand, if you DIDN'T ask him, then YOU are assuming for yourself the right to decide whether this is or isn't "harming anyone" without asking Paul.
Perhaps he is in the middle of negotiations with an advertiser for his site who knows that it has valuable old essays that can't be found on places like Medium. Or perhaps Paul counts on old essays to help establish his reputation, even though he doesn't directly make money from them. These are unlikely, but my point is that YOU DON'T KNOW.
This isn't a case of "ignoring the technical legal points", it is a case of "directly violating the law"! And for good reason -- I may quibble with the length of copyright, but I strongly believe that the basic rights granted by copyright are mostly correct in this situation. I think it SHOULD be up to the author to decide where to publish it and where not to.
Good news though. Even if you DIDN'T get Paul's permission before publishing, copyright law is flexible enough that you may STILL be OK. Specifically, it is not a crime to violate copyright, so you can't be sent to jail over this and you can't be prosecuted by some overzealous District Attorney. Instead, Paul (the copyright holder) has the right to sue you. If he's feeling nice (which he probably is) then he won't.
But stop just copying people's stuff. It's not OK, both legally AND (in my opinion) morally.