Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Summary: costs to everything...
Message-ID: <1989Sep16.054732.2439@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 16 Sep 89 05:47:32 GMT
References: <2048@avsd.UUCP> <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Sep16.005736.8803@NCoast.ORG>
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Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
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allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>As quoted from <1989Sep15.160053.25109@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu> by me:
>+---------------
>| 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.
>+---------------

>This can get you in trouble, too.  Pat Townsend rejected a submission of mine
>to the Telecom Digest because he could not guarantee that the people he mailed
>Telecom to were willing to redistribute it.  Note that this is not *his*
>doing, but he would be in effect violating the copyright if he sent a Digest
>containing my submission to someone who operated (or was forced to operate)
>under a rule forbidding redistribution.

That's quite true. Weighing the costs, though, of each policy (allowing
unlimited transfer vs. restricting transfer to "free" sites), I'll still
side with restricting redistribution. Why? Because the point of the entire
exercise isn't to sue people; heaven knows I don't have the money, and
if we get to the point where we're all sueing each other, we've already
lost.

The point *IS* that restrictions like this are intended to force those
that restrict redistribution to realize that they're acting directly
against the wishes of the people who wrote the posting they're carrying.
After all, I spent the time to write this article --- I want _everyone_
to carry it, not have it stopped by some license :-).

On the other hand, I'll voluntarily remove such a restriction when posting
to things like Telecom, or rec.humor.funny, or other such services that
may go off into commercial-land, because I suppose I'd rather have my
postings seen by somebody than by nobody. But then, I haven't ever posted
to either of those groups (or any others that would require special
handling). For general Usenet postings, I'll leave in the restriction,
because it reflects what I want Usenet to be like.

>[...] and I guarantee you that the maintainers of the sites in question
>don't review incoming postings and remove those which they are not permitted
>to carry.  (Although they should, since it's *their* responsibility to make
>sure they obey the law.)

Quite right. I don't do this either --- but then I don't restrict any
sites that I feed either. This is a reflection of a more general problem:
what to do when postings are clearly out of bounds (break copyright,
advocate illegal acts, etc). My feeling here is that Usenet (and its
constituant sites) _should_ be considered a common carrier; that all
responsibility in these cases lies with the original poster, and not
with any Usenet sites in general. But this is an open question, and
the best we can do is muddle along and stomp any obviously wrong things
that we notice.

--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.