ron@brl-sem.UUCP (03/31/87)
First, I'd like to say that I think people who put restricted copyright messages on their USENET messages are being rather silly. I doubt that it is really enforceable, it's sort of like putting a letter in a photo- copier and expecting that copies won't be made. In addition, STARGATE would be foolish to be redistributing anything that was likely to have these messages anyway. NOW FOR THE REAL STUFF: Frankly, I think people can settle down. STARGATE has already decided to transmit only moderated groups and other tame items. I'm not sure that the USENET MOD groups would even be a good idea. First, finding the moderated groups is a bit difficult these days now that the name is not an indication of the distribution strategy. But even when it was, many "MOD" groups were not sufficiently moderated (if at all) to meet any reasonable criteria that STARGATE could establish. For example, many of the groups are hot wired directly to Internet mailing lists that are unmoderated. Sending a note to the moderator address instantly posts it to the Internet community and back into the supposed moderated news group. Of the remaining moderated groups, STARGATE probably can not effectively redistribute a group without the cooperation of the moderator. They would need to expect the moderator to exercise the type of discretion for which they were looking when they chose to try the USENET moderated groups. Of the legitimate moderated lists, only a few are trully timely and interesting enough to make the price of a STARGATE subscription worthwhile. One idea that is very appealing, is to use STARGATE for some of the lists that many people want but few are willing to pay the current backbone charges to distribute. The various source and binary distributions for the variety of microcomputers comes to mind. However, I certainly would not wish to have the responsibility for blocking proprietary code that someone maliciously or inadvertantly queued for transmission. There has been recent messages from AT&T about postings of UNIX proprietary code, and a few years ago a couple of binaries of proprietary Mac programs were posted. I think STARGATE is going to have to look elsewhere for its program material than just snarfing up a few existing USENET groups. Of course, this is exactly what they have been saying they want to do. It can be done effectively. -Ron
mcintyre@rpics.UUCP (03/31/87)
In article <701@brl-sem.ARPA>, ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) writes: > First, I'd like to say that I think people who put restricted copyright > messages on their USENET messages are being rather silly. I doubt that > it is really enforceable, it's sort of like putting a letter in a photo- > copier and expecting that copies won't be made. In addition, STARGATE > would be foolish to be redistributing anything that was likely to have > these messages anyway. By putting a copyright message that conforms to what is legally necessary on any copyrightable work, the author IS legally protected. The only restriction on that protection is that by not registering the copyright the author cannot usually collect financial damages. Indeed, STARGATE would be very foolish to redistribute anything with these messages. -- Dave "mr question " McIntyre seismo!rpics!mcintyre mcintyre@csv.rpi.edu
lear@aramis.UUCP (04/01/87)
From: mcintyre@rpics.RPI.EDU (Dave McIntyre) Date: 31 Mar 87 16:35:06 GMT > > The only restriction on that protection is that by not registering the > copyright the author cannot usually collect financial damages. > By registering the copyright, would the author be entitled to collect damages?? First, one would have to prove some form of damages, right? That doesn't seem terribly easy. Then again, by all indications, there are no lawyers on this list so I wonder how many people actually understand what the legal aspects are. I certainly am in the fog. If someone versed in law does get ahold of this message, maybe he would be kind enouogh to mail me (or the newsgroup) what the law states. ...eliot -- [lear@rutgers.edu] [{harvard|pyrnj|seismo|ihnp4}!rutgers!lear]