From: forda@gtephx.UUCP (Andrew Ford @ AGCS, Phoenix, Arizona)
Subject: Re: Copyrights on netnews articles
Organization: gte
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 18:23:51 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.165930.16551@cc.gatech.edu>, duggan@cc.gatech.edu (Rick Duggan) writes:
> In article <1992Jul28.161934.15153@mdd.comm.mot.com> kelsey@mdd.comm.mot.com (Joe Kelsey) writes:
> >alice!jj has real problems defining the undefinable term ``USENET'':
> >
> >>Insistance to the contrary doesn't change the
> >>fact that USENET HAS no standard rules, 

Except the ones which he helped write and excluding the ones he doesn't 
agree with.

> >If ``USENET'' has no standard rules, then how can you claim that your
> >``copyright'' permissions amount to anything more than a hill of beans?  Your
> >permission has no meaning because ``USENET'' has no meaning.
> 
> This is the easiest question I've had today.  If Usenet had never
> existed on the face of this planet, copyright restrictions would still
> be in force.  The fact that it does exist (whether as something
> with no rules or a volunteer organization) doesn't change copyright
> law.  There are no special provisions in copyright law dealing
> with Usenet, so we must assume that copyrights are reserved to the
> author.  The law gives presumption of copyright to the author.  Just because
> there are no ``rules'' doesn't mean you can ignore copyright law.
> 

Which sounds right, but you missed one thing: if you enter into a contract
which places what you publish into the public domain, then you have waived
your copyrights for the works published under that contract..

When you post to usenet, you enter into an agreement (contract) with the 
owners of the machines: they provide information which you want (at a fee, 
sometimes only phone connect time, sometimes much more) and you give them 
information to pass on to other users. The news group news.announce.newuser 
has been built into the source code as a group which the new user subscribes 
to by default: the purpose of this is to inform the new user of the terms and 
conditions of use of netnews.  

In n.a.n, under the subject of "A Primer on How to Work With the USENET 
Community" you will find a statement telling you to assume that what
you post to usenet is in the public domain unless you include an
explicit copyright notice.  

Either you know, or should know, what it is in those informational
posts: whenever you post to usenet without an explicit copyright,
you give the enclosed "works" to the public domain.  With an explicit
copyright notice, you give license for mass distribution throughout
all usenet, which happens to keep archives of almost everything for 
a long time.

I have no problem with jj or anyone else copyrighting material
which they post, but don't do expecting that 
    (a) your copyright post gives not license for normal usenet
        distribution (remembering that uesent is 13(?) years old
        and changing very rapidly, you have to expect that some
        forms of distribution which are not being used now may 
        well be used at a later date.
    (b) everything you post is yours, and you automatically hold
        the copyright -- this is the law and it does protect your
        intellectual property rights *until* your enter into an
        agreement in which you explicity surrender those rights.

This isn't a difficult or unfair concept: for the most part usenet
is a place to give and take information and if you feel what your 
are giving is worth protecting, an explicit copyright limits the
use of your post to usenet distribution paths (which may change,
but do not include magazines, newspapers, books, etc).

The only problem I have with jj's copyright is that he tries to 
put his own definition on what is usenet and what isn't: fact
is that people are paying to read netnews, have been paying
for some time, and will continue to pay.  There is no legal
definition (TTBOMK) of "pay-for-use", so the term has no
place in a legal description - not to mention that the idea
behind the restriction runs counter to the agreement under
which he gets to use "all the computers in the world."  (and
you know what I mean by ^^^^^^^, so don't bother with petty
nit-picking about what percentage it really is).

-- 
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with
no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy.  However, 4 out of 5 US murders are 
committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?"   -  Andrew Ford
gtephx!forda@enuucp.eas.asu.edu  OR  !uunet!samsung!romed!enuucp!gtephx!forda
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