taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (07/15/86)
Roy Smith writes in "net.news": > Since the recent brou-ha about the "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" >story posted to net.comics (I think that's where it was), I've been more >atune to the posting of copyrighted material. I was somewhat surprised to >see the above-quoted article this morning in, of all places, a moderated >news group [referencing the article quoted from "A+" Magazine in mod.comp-soc] Let's call some magazines that I excerpt from and ASK them... "A+" Magazine first. Maggie Canon is the editor... They feel that having stuff published makes it THEIRS, and that while they conceed that there may indeed be a fuzzy grey line about what size an excerpt can be before being bad, they are most certainly NOT thrilled about having excerpts wantonly tossed onto computer networks!! I apologized to them and they said that so long as a notice of this nature was sent out it'd be okay. Now let's talk to "US News and World Report" Reader Service Department in Washington D.C.... Pretty hard core - they require a written request in advance on a per-article basis. End of quoting from THAT magazine. Finally, just for chuckles, let's try the "San Jose Mercury" too... Ahh the runaround...uh oh...it seems that they're pretty hardcore too. They say "the information we publish is our business" which is pretty reasonable. End of quoting from them too. Sooo...it seems that posting articles based on other sources is indeed a violation of copyright - information is the commodity these journals offer. In the interest of the continued existence and well being of the net, I will stop quoting from magazines entirely. Sorry if people feel cut off, but I can still send 'pointers' to interesting articles at least... Suitable chastened, -- Dave Taylor