msm@sri-unix (09/10/82)
I believe that all articles posted to USENET are public-domain unless they explicitly carry a copyright notice. As with any publisher (yes, I think that posting an article is the same as an electronic form of "publishing" a magazine or whatever.) percautions should be taken with regards to libel, slander, etc. I think that it is probably unclear as to who would get sued in such a case (ie; the author, person who posted the article, the orginating computer, etc.) -- as you can see, it is probably a sticky issue! The easiest way to prevent such things from happening is to avoid slanderous submissions, and not let any "traditional" news organization quote literally from the net. One of the arpanet newsgroups had this same problem. It seems that someone was leaking the tcp-ip (I think) digest. This was causing some problems. They solved it by prefixing articles with a notice stating that the information was not for publication. When you think about it, USENET newsgroups are a pure form of grass-roots publishing. Anyone on the net can post anything; there are no screening committees, editors, etc. To actually try to limit this free exchange of information *might* even violate the first ammendment! It would make an interesting case. I suggest that any further discussion be moved to newsgroup net.followup. ---- Michael S. Maiten Silicon Gulch, California <...!ucbvax!menlo70!sytek!msm>