msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (02/11/89)
It occurs to me that people are missing something when they comment on the assertion "Brad is claiming ownership of rec.humor.funny". That is, that the term "rec.humor.funny" is ambiguous here. It means both a distribution channel and the material passed through it. Once one understands this, the resolution should be obvious. Brad does *not* own the distribution channel; in the anarchy of Usenet, nobody does. It's correct to say that Brad could be replaced as moderator of rec.humor.funny in this sense, if the net opinion was to outrageously misguided as to demand it. However, the material passed through the distribution channel belongs, if it is not in the public domain, to its creators or those they designate. And in this sense, Brad is indeed a creator at the compilation level, and does have rights to the material at that level, morally and legally. If he was to be replaced, some other moderator could not simply demand access to the material that Brad had selected for a future posting but not yet posted, for instance. No such confusion exists with the most nearly analogous group, which is rec.mag.otherrealms. The reason is that Chuq wisely chose to use different forms of the name in the two cases. The material is called OtherRealms; the distribution channel is rec.mag.otherrealms (and was formerly mod.mag.- otherrealms). And the group isn't the only distribution channel for the material -- again just as with rec.humor.funny. I claim that when Brad claims ownership "of rec.humor.funny", he should be referring only to the contents. I don't think he appreciated this distinction himself when the latest fuss started. Brad doesn't own the distribution channel, and it is the channel that goes to places that he may not want. And if these premises are correct, it follows that if Brad wants a distribution different from that established for "rec" -- which is, of course, "to anyone who wants it" -- then he should go to the trouble of arranging for a new distribution channel. In the Usenet context, that'd be a new, by-request top-level prefix. (There's lots of precedent for that.) I suggest to Brad that he produce a new title for the *material*, distinct from "rec.humor.funny", and then use the term when appropriate. By the way, has everyone who advocates killing the goose that lays the golden eggs here realized that if rec.humor.funny goes by the board, nothing is to stop Brad from collecting the same material anyway, printing it annually, and selling it for a significant profit? After all, there's now a market of people who know he has a sense of humor... Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com We can design a system that's proof against accident and stupidity; but we CAN'T design one that's proof against deliberate malice. -- a spaceship designer in Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey"
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (02/12/89)
Mark is absolutely right. I never wanted to claim any ownership or control of the distribution channel at any time. Just the copyright in the work done in editing the stream and compiling it together. If Mark's right about the confusion being in the dual name, sorry about that. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
cc1@valhalla.cs.ucla.edu (Ken, you nimrod) (02/15/89)
Okay, let's call the newsgroup "rec.humor.funny" and the stuff that Brad dumps into the newsgroup "rec.humor.funnystuff". Okay? --Ken
matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (02/23/89)
Mark Brader's article is nonsense. They name you put on something does not affect your ownership of the underlying object. Brad's own claim of the holding of a compilation copyright is erroneous. Any reasonable person who has read anything about copyright law and has looked at the newgroup's contents can see that he does not. (At least, not under U.S. law. Canadian law may be quite different.) ________________________________________________________ Matt Crawford matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu