From: peterd@cc.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch)
Subject: Re: Copyrights on netnews articles
Organization: Bunyip Information Systems (the archie people)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 15:56:10 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.003110.16197@iguana.uucp> merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.050144.17029@gtephx.UUCP> forda@gtephx.UUCP (Andrew Ford @ AGCS, Phoenix, Arizona) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul24.185007.26058@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>, peterd@cc.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:
>>> We have exactly such a mechanism now. It's the
>>> "Distibution:" field of the header, and people regularly
>>> use it to control the automated copying software to limit
>>> distribution of their work. Thus, I would argue that the
>>
>>The Distribution field only determines the geographical 
>>area which you feel is appropriate: anyone can repost that
>>message all over the world.

And are not they wrong for having done so against my
instructions?  I've clearly indicated where I think my
posting should be going, what more do you want? If we
offer extensions to the "Distribution:" and "Expiry:"
fields to allow an author to specify or disallow
additional distribution and expiry mechanisms I think it
would bring us in line with current copyright law around
the world and thus be a "good thing".

Remember, when Usenet goes to court and is found in
violation of some law, it is the law that will prevail, no
matter what the Usenet idealists might prefer. For those
who believe in the rule of law that should not be seen as
such a bad thing.


>also note that Distribution: is broken in that a fair number of sites
>ignore the directive in their batching control file (ie. Cnews sys:all/all)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The fact that
some sites are broken (ie some site admns ignore my
distribution instructions) does not mean that I can't issue
such instructions, nor does it mean that I've got to give
up my rights to copyright because some people think I
shouldn't have them. The _law_ says I have them, which is
the important fact that will be considered when Usenet is
taken to court.

I suspect that a single successful court case will sadly
see a lot of sites go off the air for a while, and perhaps
force a lot more to fix their broken software. It would be
nicer if this could be avoided by convincing people that
honouring authors' instructions on distribution is (to
quote Wilfred Brimley) the "right thing to do", but that's
not very likely given our experience with software
copyright in the past. People usually need a reality check
before they will act in their own self-interest and I
suspect that one day, sooner or later, we're going to get
it in the form of a copyright infringement lawsuit by some
large publisher against some large Usenet providers. Not
today, not next week, but eventually, I suspect...

It's sad, but I suspect that the frontier days are
starting to draw to a close. I just saw the latest DNS
survey, and we're just under one million hosts (up from
about 730,000 in January). The number of people, and thus
the amount of money involved, is growing exponentially and
that means that we're getting big enough for the world to
notice us. That means that practices that could be ignored
in the past are going to come under increading scrutiny.
Some will not bear up under the light and will have to be
adjusted. Like I said, that's sad, but it's a part of
growing up...



					- peterd

Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing