You're all going to be very tired of me when this is over, but I feel very strongly about this issue.
Dan 7.1, you are absolutely right ... JAG's House has no business "copyrighting" a list of links (now granted I think that is a general disclaimer protecting his legitimate claims that may appear on his site). And it is all Apple's anyway as you say. BUT, we must look at websites as "Publications". A well researched website that hosts images, documents and links is absolutely no different than an author who publishes a book about Apple, a book to which the author holds the copyright. The only real difference here is that none of the websites have contacted Apple for permission to re-print their copyrights and most are not generating royalties from book sales. Most of them rely on the legal precedence of copyright law that allows quotation of educational purposes, more akin to academic papers than published books. However, in the case of a published book, if an author used an Apple document, would you re-print it without crediting the source in which you found it since Apple's is the only permission you need? Well this is a gray area since it is a copyrighted Apple document and you could have easily found it independently and certainly you do not need the previous author's permission to use it in your book (just Apple's). But it is an ethical question, because had you not read the previous author's book, you would have never known about the document to allow you to include it in your book or draw new conclusions about your subject. At a bare minimum you should at least credit the source book in yours as an excellent collection of material, whether you disclose where you obtained the specific document or not. When it comes to links, once again, nothing to copyright, but the collection of them, not to mention maintaining them takes some effort. To simply take the results of someone else's efforts as a whole and repost on your site with no credit whatsoever presents another ethical dilemma. What JAG's House should have done was list a few links that he felt were important then provide a link to Ray's "excellent list of additional Lisa links". You will note that Ray's Lisa Emulator page is not even mentioned. How is it possible JAG's House got every Lisa link out there, but missed the most important one!?
The big deal is, every author is deserving of recognition if they want it, for whatever reason. When material is taken from an original source site and posted elsewhere without credit, regardless of copyrights (since little of anything posted on these sites is copyrightable by the authors anyway as you point out), the original author's work may be omitted by search engines, or at least reduced in ranking, in favor of the new site which has usurped the information. This in of itself is not so bad, until you realize the original work may be overlooked without link-backs.
In the end all I can do is suggest a course of action. If another site helped you in anyway, credit it – especially if you have taken anything from it to use on your own and particularly if it is something of which you previously were not aware. This is a question each of us must ask ourselves as we interact in the community, but I think there is a simple check list here:
Did the original author spend a great deal of time researching any information you are borrowing or is it just quoting the usual sources?
Did the original author post something unique you've never seen before, or is it the same stuff seen on every other site?
Is the material an originally created copyrightable image, document, software, or otherwise, or is it all reproductions of the same stuff you've seen elsewhere?
In the former example of each case above the author deserves some credit for the material you are drawing upon. In the latter examples, well you should ask yourself what new information your efforts are really imparting that is so deserving of sharing which other sites are not already covering. We all think we can do something better, that's why there are dozens of books written about the early days of Apple. But I would suggest there are enough really well done vintage Apple websites that none of us should be recreating them. Rather, we should be offering new information or understanding with links back to those original sources. Nothing irritates me more than Googling an Apple topic and finding a dozen sites that all repeat the same information without offering anything new. All I'm saying, is that most of those sites probably drew on one of the others to do their research but credited nothing. So if there was incorrect information, it is now repeated in so many knock-off sites that it looks correct.
Dan 7.1, you are absolutely right ... JAG's House has no business "copyrighting" a list of links (now granted I think that is a general disclaimer protecting his legitimate claims that may appear on his site). And it is all Apple's anyway as you say. BUT, we must look at websites as "Publications". A well researched website that hosts images, documents and links is absolutely no different than an author who publishes a book about Apple, a book to which the author holds the copyright. The only real difference here is that none of the websites have contacted Apple for permission to re-print their copyrights and most are not generating royalties from book sales. Most of them rely on the legal precedence of copyright law that allows quotation of educational purposes, more akin to academic papers than published books. However, in the case of a published book, if an author used an Apple document, would you re-print it without crediting the source in which you found it since Apple's is the only permission you need? Well this is a gray area since it is a copyrighted Apple document and you could have easily found it independently and certainly you do not need the previous author's permission to use it in your book (just Apple's). But it is an ethical question, because had you not read the previous author's book, you would have never known about the document to allow you to include it in your book or draw new conclusions about your subject. At a bare minimum you should at least credit the source book in yours as an excellent collection of material, whether you disclose where you obtained the specific document or not. When it comes to links, once again, nothing to copyright, but the collection of them, not to mention maintaining them takes some effort. To simply take the results of someone else's efforts as a whole and repost on your site with no credit whatsoever presents another ethical dilemma. What JAG's House should have done was list a few links that he felt were important then provide a link to Ray's "excellent list of additional Lisa links". You will note that Ray's Lisa Emulator page is not even mentioned. How is it possible JAG's House got every Lisa link out there, but missed the most important one!?
The big deal is, every author is deserving of recognition if they want it, for whatever reason. When material is taken from an original source site and posted elsewhere without credit, regardless of copyrights (since little of anything posted on these sites is copyrightable by the authors anyway as you point out), the original author's work may be omitted by search engines, or at least reduced in ranking, in favor of the new site which has usurped the information. This in of itself is not so bad, until you realize the original work may be overlooked without link-backs.
In the end all I can do is suggest a course of action. If another site helped you in anyway, credit it – especially if you have taken anything from it to use on your own and particularly if it is something of which you previously were not aware. This is a question each of us must ask ourselves as we interact in the community, but I think there is a simple check list here:
Did the original author spend a great deal of time researching any information you are borrowing or is it just quoting the usual sources?
Did the original author post something unique you've never seen before, or is it the same stuff seen on every other site?
Is the material an originally created copyrightable image, document, software, or otherwise, or is it all reproductions of the same stuff you've seen elsewhere?
In the former example of each case above the author deserves some credit for the material you are drawing upon. In the latter examples, well you should ask yourself what new information your efforts are really imparting that is so deserving of sharing which other sites are not already covering. We all think we can do something better, that's why there are dozens of books written about the early days of Apple. But I would suggest there are enough really well done vintage Apple websites that none of us should be recreating them. Rather, we should be offering new information or understanding with links back to those original sources. Nothing irritates me more than Googling an Apple topic and finding a dozen sites that all repeat the same information without offering anything new. All I'm saying, is that most of those sites probably drew on one of the others to do their research but credited nothing. So if there was incorrect information, it is now repeated in so many knock-off sites that it looks correct.