romkey@asylum.SF.CA.US (John Romkey) (09/22/89)
I guess I just fail to see what the problem with commercial use of the USENET maps is. So, Foo Widgets, Inc. uses the maps as a mailing list. They therefore mail out a Foo flyer to everyone in the maps. You get your copy. If it's useless dreck like the Sun and Altos magazines I get every so often, then you toss them in the recycling bin. Or you line your bird cage with it or use it for kindling (preferably in a fireplace and not news.admin). If you think Foo Widgets, Inc. is a bunch of evil nasty lectroids from Planet Ten then you can be happy that they're wasting their money on sending useless Foo Flyers to thousands of people who are letting their pets shit on them. If you or anyone else actually finds a useful widget in the Foo Flyer and buys it from them, then you've gotten something useful out of it, and then the Foo folks are probably not the next best thing to Darth Vader after all, because they've actually done something good for you in making their Foo Flyer and all its wonderful widgets available to you. Or you can decide to be one of the network antibodies fighting off the grievous widget infection of capitalist scum who are trying to take over the USENET and never find out whether the scum will succeed (meaning there was demand for the widgets and therefore they are filling a niche) or fail (in which case your efforts were wasted anyway) on their own, and what the rest of the people really wanted. They really will vote with their wallets, you know. I personally prefer to let evolution take its path and people decide for themselves, individually. If Foo Widgets is Darth, then they'll fall with the empire, because they're useless. If they're wearing white hats, then they'll succeed because people will buy from them. Right now this may not seem true, but given the passage of time, history will change itself so it will have been true. I must admit that it certainly can be fun to flame about copyright law, especially when you're mostly theorizing and making it up as you go along. And remember that if someone accidentally buys a widget, it most certainly means the Death of the USENET as We Know It. Pax, folks. -- - john romkey USENET/UUCP: romkey@asylum.sf.ca.us Internet: romkey@ftp.com "Live the life you love, Use a god you trust, and don't take it all too seriously." - Love & Rockets