jgreely@diplodocus.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (02/08/89)
In article <7650@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: >I don't see any "ownership of intellectual work is evil" thinking here. >I don't see anyone saying you should not own intellectual work. But you >yourself have said that your work has been that of compiler; not author. >There is no intellectual process involved in editing messages and having >the right to post edited text on the network. "There is no intellectual process involved in editing messages?" Just what do *you* mean by editing? Spell-checking? Maybe a quick pass through emacs? Funny, but I thought the whole point of rec.humor.funny was that it be restricted to jokes that at least one person thought held "sufficient" humor. If the process of intelligent selection does not involve intelligence, let's replace Brad with a shell script and cron (or would the shell script be too bright?). Brad has several times mentioned the basic process he goes through in creating rec.humor.funny, involving (for a start) reading all of the submitted jokes, verifying either originality or proper crediting, and making sure that they haven't been done before in the group. In addition, he evaluates the potential "offensiveness" of each joke, choosing to rot13 those he feels require it. *Then* it goes to a shell script and cron. I'm sure if he posted statistics on how many jokes pass through his mailbox vs. the number that get posted, most would be forced to agree that the task is not a mindless rubber-stamp. We won't even mention the service he performs by wading through rec.humor looking for gems, except to mention it. >The sentiment is that people are posting things on Usenet, via your >group, which they posted in good faith as PUBLIC DOMAIN material. Bluntly, so what? Usenet is already carried by commercial services, who make their money by essentially reselling the material provided to them for free. While they tend to be controversial, they *never* get the kind of hassle Brad is getting. Maybe he's a little more visible than the silent mass of bboard-boys culling a profit from the sweat of the net? > The >sentiment is that many, many people participate in the daily production >we call Usenet. Public, non-profit networks of this sort are unique, >in that they rely on the goodwill of all to make them succeed. ... and when that goodwill breaks down, someone gets nailed. Last time, they aimed at Brad. Maybe his initial position was too far from the accepted party stance here, but it is about as justifiable as a mugging victim screaming for tougher enforcement. He was publicly slammed for his efforts, and was threatened with lawsuits left and right. Maybe he went overboard. I wouldn't blame him if he had. But I don't think he did. The presence of a monthly introduction shows good legal advice, and allows him to point at something everyone has to *see* to read the group. Maybe they skipped it on the basis of the subject line, but they had to make a decision. The proper legal term for this is "covering your ass". If the current problem is not entirely ended, or if some disgruntled freshman without a sense of humor jumps on the bandwagon, Brad has his first line of defense. >What if someone, like a backbone administrator for example, were to cull >through the messages on the entire net over a two year period -- including >messages in r.h.f., and then publish something called "The Best of >Usenet Messages" -- and claim compilation copyright based on the several >hours he had to labor each week getting his machine to work properly in >handling news? Would you like that? (actually, I would. sort of a rec.goodstuff in digest form) You're playing with words here. First you postulate someone culling through posted articles, and then ask if he can claim a compilation copyright based on the labor of keeping the news transport mechanism running. What about the time spent performing the culling? Meaningless? There are over 67,000 articles in our history file, comprising about 6 weeks of news. Let's say our hypothetical collector reads 10% of those, spending an average of 10 seconds on each. In those six weeks, he has spent 18 hours just *reading* them. Adding a reasonable process of selection, to lower the total to a printable form (say, 200 articles), we'll let him choose 10% of the articles read to go over again, this time spending 30 seconds on each (another 5.5 hours). Now he's narrowed the field to 200 articles, each of which requires spell-checking and possible reformatting. We'll be kind, and say this takes only an additional two hours. Since the specification was for an *administrator* (or, in your view, an adminisTRAITOR), we'll add in the five hours a week keeping news running for those six weeks. Over 55 hours spent on 6 weeks of news, and he hasn't even gotten started with whatever typesetting and printing arrangements he's chosen. Not to mention that I've made him a speed reader and expert proofreader, with lots of dedicated disk space and cpu time, and a prophetic knowledge of where the best articles will appear. Maybe I should add in pop-and-twinkies charges, while I'm at it? Never mind that this doesn't begin to approach the effort of producing a real "Best of Usenet", which would be several orders of magnitude greater. Don't belittle the effort required of a competent editor. You may wake up some morning to find that your entire life has been red-penciled. -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely) The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Sciences