[net.news.group] revenue opportunity for Usenet

dave@umcp-cs.UUCP (Dave Stoffel) (12/01/85)

    I am giving thought to a plan whereby Usenet news groups could be
    packaged for sale to a market segment which does not have access to
Usenet.  I am thinking about this as a business opportunity for both my
company and Usenet participants.  Usenet might receive 50% of net
profits.  The most attractive groups to this market segment are
probably net.micro.mac and net.micro.pc for starters.

    I would appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this idea, and
your comments on the issues it suggests.  Some of these issues are:

1.   Is the Usenet community receptive to this concept?

2.   what mechanisms could be viable for feeding revenue to Usenet
participants?

3.   What Usenet participants could receive these revenues?

4.   What might these revenues be used for?


    David Stoffel
    Amber Research Group

johnl@ima.UUCP (12/09/85)

/* Written  4:20 pm  Nov 30, 1985 by dave@umcp-cs in ima:net.news.group */
>     I am giving thought to a plan whereby Usenet news groups could be
>     packaged for sale to a market segment which does not have access to
> Usenet.  I am thinking about this as a business opportunity for both my
> company and Usenet participants.  Usenet might receive 50% of net
> profits.  The most attractive groups to this market segment are
> probably net.micro.mac and net.micro.pc for starters.

I already spool off net.micro.pc to floppy disks and send it to the
newsletter editors at the Boston Computer Society PC group and the
New York PC users' group.  They acknowledge that I'm the swell guy who
sends it along but otherwise they pay nothing.  Don't worry -- I have
made it very clear to them that each posting is the opinion of only the
poster (sometimes not even that) and that there is a fair amount of
misinformation.  It's about 2 disks full each month.

I am certainly not opposed to commercial enterprise, but expect that many
of the people who pay for usenet would be dismayed to find that their
employees' pearls of wisdom were being sold by others.  Even if we could
deal with that, attempts to create some sort of usenet institution to
which the 50% of profits could be paid back would be an incredible can of
worms, and previous attempts to create such a thing (to buy phone bandwidth
in bulk, for example) have all foundered.

John Levine, ima!johnl

daemon@houligan.UUCP (12/18/85)

In article <128900001@ima.UUCP> dave@umcp-cs writes:

>> /* Written  4:20 pm  Nov 30, 1985 by dave@umcp-cs in ima:net.news.group */
>> I am giving thought to a plan whereby Usenet news groups could be
>> packaged for sale to a market segment which does not have access to
>> Usenet.  ...  Usenet might receive 50% of net profits.  The most
>> attractive groups to this market segment are probably net.micro.mac and
>> net.micro.pc for starters.

Unless a mechanism can be worked out for payment of royalties to each
and every author (and their "sponsor"ing employer/university/whatever)
involved, I sincerely believe that such an endeavour would be opening
itself up to a potential blizzard of litigation.

--tgi
	while (--tgi)	/* my mind continues to decay */
		;	/* even though I do nothing.. */    

{brl-bmd,ccvaxa,pur-ee,sun}!csd-gould!midas!tgi (Craig Strickland @ Gould)
305/587-2900 x5014  CompuServe: 76545,1007   Source: BDQ615   MCIMail: 272-3350

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