Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Summary: Copyright, Imminent Death of the Net
Message-ID: <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 Sep 89 16:00:53 GMT
References: <2048@avsd.UUCP>
Sender: news@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu
Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
Lines: 33

childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:
>USENET ? Isn't that in the public domain ?

According to my recollection of the copyright law changes in 1989, no.
I seem to recall the copyright laws are now such that there is an
implied copyright unless it's explicitly waived. To my way of thinking,
this could put quite a crimp on Usenet redistribution services. Of
course, this gets back to the issue about whether Usenet is a publishing
medium or not, etc. There seems to be a definite waiver of some
redistribution rights inherent in posting, but that may apply only to
Usenet in general. Of course, some of us add lines like:
'You may redistribute only if your recipients can' (anyone remember the
Stargate flap?) which tend to settle the issue once and for all: unless
the recipient of a moderated news flow is free to send my postings on,
they can't themselves carry my postings.

>Well, people, time to put a (copyright 1989 your_name_here) in your .signature
>and prepare for a lot of lawsuits. I am disgusted.

Imminent Death of the Net predicted! I'm not really sure the copyright
statements are necessary (but see my .sig anyway), but with any luck it
won't get to the point where anyone really thinks a lawsuit is necessary.
If it gets to that point, we've ALL already lost...

>-- richard

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.