From: merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer)
Subject: Re: What is "pay-per-read"?
Organization: Ed (the iguana) Memorial Society
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 02:23:43 GMT

In article <23306@alice.att.com> jj@alice.UUCP (jj, old curmudgeon and general grump) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.034131.4659@iguana.uucp> merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes:
>>putting a copyright in your .sig is like forcing people to sign a waiver 
>>against injury/disease before using a public toilet.
>
>Not at all.  You're trying to make it into a contract by
>attachment, rather than a property notice. By your clever
>argument, you'd label all notices of property contracts by
>attachment.  Sorry, but no go.

geez, you are really starting to sound like a lawyer.

if you are, you should probably soon realize the senselessnes and the potential
your copyright has to screw things up for some site on the net.

>>it makes no sense.
>
>You make no sense.  I see no reason to continue to take this
>abuse when the facts are so clearly established.

> Bush    *Copyright alice!jj 1992, all rights reserved, except transmission

this is fairly straight forward, although a copyright to an id which is
shrouded in secrecy is sort of wierd.

>   vs       *by USENET and like free facilities granted. Said permission is
> Clinton  --    *granted only for complete copies that include this notice.
> Just Say !NO!       *Use on pay-for-read services specifically disallowed.

this part makes no sense, and illustrates your lack of knowledge and respect
for what the net is.

suppose my boss has me calculate the cost of usenet so that these things get
worked into the budget.  and suppose we apportion those costs to departments
so that they all ship in towards the costs?

to me that can be interpreted as being pay-per-read.  now you expect me
to go to the boss and say i need to write a script to look for articles
containing copyrights, but we are going to have to lease time on one of
MIT's AI machines because we only want to turf articles with specific
use and distribution clauses, and not those articles with general copyrights
or those that are discussing copyrights in context.

maybe i should just go to my boss and say "oh, by the way, i need to write
as script to ditch this asshole's articles because he thinks his shit smells
better than everyone else's."

your copyright makes you look like a child.  grow up (in a USENET sense).

>>now, if your article contained some useful/creative information, it might
>>warrant a copyright, but you insist on using a copyright as a tool for
>>limiting distribution, not to protect your words from abuse.
>
>As far WHY I use it, that's irrelevant, and also ignores the fact
>that I regard someone paying someone else for MY words (as 
>opposed for using someone's computer) as abuse.  You have
>a most curiously anthromorphic view of copyrights, don't you?

[ hmmm, big word, i'll have to go look that one up. ]

oh, to live in an ideal world.

students at some universites pay user fees for computing.
some people pay fees to use a BBS.
some people pay electricity and phone charges to access netnews.

if you don't want YOUR words read by people on the 'net, don't post.

if you want to rewrite the distribution software so that silly copyright 
notices like yours can be honoured automatically, go ahead.

don't expect the administrators to sit and read every article coming through.

personally i would like to see a Copyright: header so that we can at least
pick out the articles with explicit copyrights.

-- 
[ Jim Mercer   Reptilian Research  merce@iguana.reptiles.org  +1 519 893-6085 ]
[      "'Tis better to clutch a glowing squid than curse the darkness."       ]
[                                                     Archie McPhee Catalog   ]
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