christian@topaz.UUCP (03/29/87)
I got one submission with a copyright notice, including a restriction on the conditions under which it could be redistributed. My layman's interpretation is that reposting it in mod.religion.christian would be consistent with the author's intent in the notice. Nevertheless, I have decided not to repost it, nor in general to post any material that contains a copyright notice. The legal consequences to me of passing on articles with various constraints on redistribution are not at all obvious. I often change titles, and insert comments of various sorts at the beginning or end. This technically means that I am creating a derivative work, something for which I would need explicit permission. Furthermore, not everyone is going to use the same wording. If everyone on Usenet agreed on a single copyright notice, and appropriate legal opinions were gotten to explain the exact consequences, I would be willing to go along. But I am not about to submit each article to a lawyer before passing it on. I do not wish to get in the middle of the argument between certain people and the Stargate gang. Note that I am not legallly permitted to ignore copyrights, even if I think you would be happy for me to do so. As I recall, it is a violation of the law to remove a copyright notice. Should Stargate begin operations, I will endeavor to inform the readership of whether or not they are carrying this group, and whether people receiving this group via Stargate are permitted to redistribute it. At that point, if the controversy surrounding Stargate is still present, I will ask for a vote, to determine whether participants want this group to be carried via Stargate or not. If not, I will make arrangements for it not to be. If most people want it to be carried, people posting articles will either have to abide by this or not post.