tim (12/06/82)
It is very common for people who find some piece of prose pleasing to post it to the net. Most commonly, these are reviews of books, but I have seen entire essays and such posted. Although the motivations of the people who do this are admirable, it is past time for someone to point out the following: This is a crime. It is a crime to publish or in any way reproduce for public consumption such copyrighted materials without explicit permission. It is also a crime to rebroadcast knowingly such materials. All sites which broadcast these are guilty. This may seem like a minor crime, since no one is making any money from it. This is a false impression. Place yourself in the position of the writer who lives from day to day on the earnings of his or her writing. These people are not, like most net contributors, people who play around with writing, people who have a neat idea and casually decide to share it with people, but professional craftsmen. To infringe on their copyrights this way is to steal from them. If you have sufficient respect for the writer that you wish to share his or her work, then have enough respect not to steal from them. Many writers would probably not object to the posting if you asked, but please do ask. Write in care of the publisher, or get a phone number from the publisher (or the phone book). Show some consideration; suppose someone were to take a piece of your commercially distributed software and post it. Thank you for reading this. Tim Maroney unc!tim