Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ulysses!andys From: andys@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Andy Sherman) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: In Moderation: A Moderator's Response Summary: usenet is like grafitti Message-ID: <11660@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> Date: 13 Jun 89 19:28:35 GMT References: <41197@bbn.COM> <12113@well.UUCP> <41207@bbn.COM> <41279@bbn.COM> Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com Reply-To: andys@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Andy Sherman) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Murray Hill, NJ Lines: 27 In-reply-to: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) In article <41279@bbn.COM>, cosell@bbn (Bernie Cosell) writes: >I know all this, I wsa just groping for something that might make >sense--- by _your_ analysis (which is mostly correct, of course), >authors retain *no* rights: the act of posting to usenet essentially >gives anyone who can contrive to receive the posting the privilege of >doing anything they choose with it. Can one draw some other conclusion >from your argument? As soon as you allow that authors retain _some_ >rights to a posting to usenet, you go right into the quicksand of having >to say what those rights *are*. Posting to the net is *not* like publishing a book. It is much more like writing on a fence, or hanging a poster on a wall in Beijing. As Karl Kleinpaste pointed out, the act of posting is an implicit acknowledgement that your wit (or lack of it) will be flooded through an ill-defined loosely coupled network. Do you copyright your grafitti? Do you retain rights in a letter to the editor of your local paper? (In fact, they do. They resell your letter for profit). Let's get real. USENET is an abstraction. I doubt you could even call it a legal fiction. There is no organization, no officers, no board of directors, no accountability. People (and systems) drop in and out. Remember that when ascribing legal rights to USENET access. -- Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ *NEW ADDRESS* AUDIBLE: (201) 582-5928 *NEW PHONE* READABLE: andys@ulysses.ATT.COM or att!ulysses!andys *NEW EMAIL* The views and opinions are my own. Who else would want them? *OLD DISCLAIMER*