chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/12/89)
Obviously, reasonable people can and do disagree on the subject of the
interaction between commercial operations and Usenet. I see it thus:
Usenet cooexists with, and sometimes even supports, commercial
operations; in turn, commercial operations support Usenet.
Such cooperation is at the heart of the Usenet spirit as
I understand it.
However, the Usenet's cooperative is based upon the distribution of
information without restriction other than author copyright.
Therefore, the In Moderation people, by creating a partial news feed
that is >restricted< to In Moderation subscribers, would fragment
Usenet and subvert its free flow of information. (Please, I'm not
predicting the end of Usenet! Such a development would be a Bad
Thing, but not a catastrophe.)
In essense, I make this distinction:
Usenet and commercial enterprises work well together.
Usenet >as< commercial enterprise is a Bad Thing.
Obviously, not all agree with me on this issue, or even care about it. But
I intend to do my part to keep the Usenet free of restrictions.
(Of course, all this may turn out to me moot. The In Moderation people
still have to deal with the issue of article copyright. Until they settle
that problem, I wouldn't fork over any hard-earned dollars, even if I did
want to subscribe.)
--
You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest!romkey@asylum.SF.CA.US (John Romkey) (06/13/89)
In article <1989Jun12.100943.24233@ateng.ateng.com> chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >(Of course, all this may turn out to me moot. The In Moderation people >still have to deal with the issue of article copyright. Until they settle >that problem, I wouldn't fork over any hard-earned dollars, even if I did >want to subscribe.) >-- >You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. >Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> >A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest! Um, I don't see any copyright here. The courts are very strict on what they accept as a valid copyright (for the reason of avoiding people saying "Well, that *was* my copyright message and they didn't understand it" after the fact, when it was written in Sanskrit or something). Anyway, there's no binding obligation as far as a court of law would be concerned for someone to honor a request like that in your .signature. Your .signature should look something like this: >Copyright 1989 by Chip Salzenberg. You may redistribute this article >only to those who may freely do likewise. and you might have something legal. I'm still not sure how legally binding it is, though, probably someday someone will find out - the only way to be sure who wins a lawsuit over a .signature violation (so please, everyone, let's not start flaming about who knows more about copyrights, okay?). By the way, suppose that IN MODERATION does not restrict the flow of "raw USENET" articles, but instead, prunes some out and adds messages from the moderator summarizing things and such, and did not restrict the raw original USENET stuff. Would this satisfy you? I don't really know what form IN MODERATION's service is actually going to take, so I don't know if what I just said above has any reflection in reality, but I'm just wondering. -- - john romkey USENET/UUCP: romkey@asylum.sf.ca.us Internet: romkey@ftp.com "We had some good machines/But they don't work no more" - Shriekback
karl@ficc.uu.net (karl lehenbauer) (06/13/89)
It seems to me that the In Moderation people can legitimately claim a compilation copyright on the result of their "moderation" of usenet articles. As they will be reading all the material they cull from to produce their moderated stuff, it will be trivial for them to not include any articles that have a message prohibiting redstribution. If they were to accidentally post one once in a while, it would be difficult for the person infringed to claim that they had been substantially damaged. There is already an implicit permission to reproduce granted by the act of posting an article, as this is the means by which it is distributed. They may make enough money to be profitable. I wish them luck. I predict, though, that the status quo (free feeds, with unmoderated groups left unmoderated) will be the norm for a large majority of sites. -- -- uunet!ficc!karl "Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's -- karl@ficc.uu.net console." -- Hitchhiker's Guide
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (06/14/89)
In article <1989Jun12.100943.24233@ateng.ateng.com> chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >Obviously, reasonable people can and do disagree on the subject of the >interaction between commercial operations and Usenet. I see it thus: > > Usenet cooexists with, and sometimes even supports, commercial > operations; in turn, commercial operations support Usenet. > Such cooperation is at the heart of the Usenet spirit as > I understand it. > > However, the Usenet's cooperative is based upon the distribution of > information without restriction other than author copyright. So IMN is bad because it is a limited newsfeed? Now, what if there was a mythical company called Gateway. Now gateway gets a full news feed. Gateway is the only node in Arizona. Gateway pays long distance charges to get its newsfeed. Now let's say that some other companies in Arizona want to get a newsfeed. They can't afford the long distance phone costs and so want to feed off of Gateway. Gateway says, "Ok but I will charge you $XXX to feed you usenet." Now is there anything wrong with this? Assuming that Gateway doesn't restrict the further feeding of news. What if Gateway was making money on this deal because all the companies in Alaska decided to pay Gateway, rather than One feeding off Gateway and the others off of him? I think it's ok. Making money selling newsfeeds is not wrong. You can always get a feed from somewhere else. No one is forcing you to get it from a 'gateway'. UUNET sells feeds. They claim to be non-profit but all that means is that they put all the money back into the company. The people who run uunet still make salaries. Now what does a for-profit business do that a non-profit business doesn't do? The 'profit' is usually put back into the business to expand it just like a non-profit company. Some of it goes to pay stockholder dividends but most stays in the company. So in my opinion uunet is making money off of usenet. Now sure, they are performing a service in return by being a hub for news, but so is Gateway in my example above. Now, I don't like the idea of someone culling usenet and selling a restricted version of it and maybe trying to restrict the further passage of news to other sites. To me that is paramount to plagarism. Taking the work of others and claiming copyright of it to restrict it from others. If IMN does not try to compilation copyright the stuff it takes from Usenet and doesn't try to restrict their customers from passing it on, then I don't have any objections to them. What *IS* their policy regarding this? In summary: I think that a site has the right to sell ACCESS to news but not to try to OWN news and/or restrict it after it leaves the site. -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (06/14/89)
In article <2482@asylum.SF.CA.US> romkey@asylum.UUCP (John Romkey,The Asylum) writes: }In article <1989Jun12.100943.24233@ateng.ateng.com> chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: }>(Of course, all this may turn out to me moot. The In Moderation people }>still have to deal with the issue of article copyright. Until they settle }>that problem, I wouldn't fork over any hard-earned dollars, even if I did }>want to subscribe.) } }Um, I don't see any copyright here. The courts are very strict on what }they accept as a valid copyright (for the reason of avoiding people }saying "Well, that *was* my copyright message and they didn't }understand it" after the fact, when it was written in Sanskrit or }something). Um, you're a little behind the times. As of 1 march of this year the US became a signatory to the Berne convention. The major change is that articles are *born* copyrighted by their authors, copyright notice or not. }>Copyright 1989 by Chip Salzenberg. You may redistribute this article }>only to those who may freely do likewise. I don't think that this hacks it. By the old US copyright laws your copyright notice is technically proper; although no longer necessary. And the additional restriction seems so vaguely worded that it'll never fly ("freely"? is "redistribute" well enough defined? What if the reason for the lack-of-freedeom to redistribute is due to a third party, can yOU now sue ME? I may have no way of even KNOWING what you do with my feed (since I and the folks I share a feed with have no contractual obligation to one another that I know of). If anyone is really serious about this (and it is hard to imagine how or why, since no one experiences any real "damages" from this "violation") you should go consult a lawyer. }(so }please, everyone, let's not start flaming about who knows more about }copyrights, okay?). No flame, just bringing you up to date. As you mention, a LOT of this sort of stuff is all court-determined, and I think that things are even worse now, because since we just crossed a new copyright-law epoch we need a WHOLE NEW series of court tests to find out just how those laws will be applied in the US. I was told that the European legal world is SO different from the US (standards of evidence, etc), that there is little "advance warning" to be had. /Bernie\
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/15/89)
According to romkey@asylum.SF.CA.US (John Romkey): >According to chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg): >>Of course, all this may turn out to me moot. The In Moderation people >>still have to deal with the issue of article copyright. > >Um, I don't see any copyright here. An explicit copyright notice is not required. For some months now, all works in the U.S.A are born copyrighted. Something called the Berne Convention, an international agreement about copyrights, has finally been signed by the U.S.A. >By the way, suppose that IN MODERATION does not restrict the flow of >"raw USENET" articles, but instead, prunes some out and adds messages >from the moderator summarizing things and such, and did not restrict >the raw original USENET stuff. Would this satisfy you? Yes, of course. Free distribution of partial feeds is a Usenet tradition. Unfortunately, IMN will probably not adopt this policy -- it would render them unable to prevent entire regions from "freeloading" off a single feed. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest!
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/15/89)
According to sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks): >So IMN is bad because it is a limited newsfeed? No, of course not. Limited newsfeeds abound in Usenet of today. >Making money selling newsfeeds is not wrong. You can always get a feed >from somewhere else. No one is forcing you to get it from a 'gateway'. I quite agree. The Evil and Rude thing about IMN is that they will have to attempt some restriction on the redistribution of Usenet articles sent via IMN. If, in fact, they do not attempt any such restriction, I cannot see anything wrong with their proposed service. We shall see. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg | <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> A T Engineering | Me? Speak for my company? Surely you jest!