Xref: utzoo rec.music.synth:17005 comp.sys.apple2:8259 comp.sys.amiga:71359 comp.sys.mac.misc:5550 comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:3511 misc.legal:22503 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!shelby!portia.stanford.edu!elaine0.stanford.edu!draphsor From: draphsor@elaine0.stanford.edu (Matt Rollefson) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.sys.apple2,comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,misc.legal Subject: Re: Your Rights under the 1976 Copyright Act Message-ID: Date: 11 Nov 90 05:19:50 GMT References: <14088@arisia.Xerox.COM> Sender: news@portia.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Organization: AIR, Stanford University Lines: 58 cooper@arisia.Xerox.COM (Martin F N Cooper) writes: >In article <1990Nov9.210351.23551@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Desdinova) writes: >> SOME PEOPLE OBVIOUSLY THINK WE LIVE IN THE UNITED SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC. >>This, this nation is the United States of America, and if there is one thing >>that is sacred above ALL ELSE is freedom of thought and freedom of information. >>I am SICK and TIRED of people trying to take away my rights to think as I please >>because they think they know what's best for me. This is censorship, plain >>and simple, whether done "for my good" or not. The law is plain- the consumer >>has rights above and beyond big business, and I intend to make sure I never >>lose those rights. >However, remember that many people on the net work for private corporations, >and that newsgroups such as rec.music.synth are populated in the main by >people who are not employed in areas directly related to the subject at >hand. So a company might just decide that in the interest of increasing >productivity (as a stated reason, at least) they should cut off access to >the net for their employees. That, to me, is certainly to the detriment of >the net as a whole. >I'm not saying I agree with these ideas, all I'm saying is that they could >easily happen, and we wouldn't like the result. Yes, but would you like the result if we follow *your* advice? Which is, in a nutshell, 'bow down before the all-powerful companies and pray that they won't cut off my net access!' If we are to do this, the net becomes useless. We go from being a free collection of intelligent entities who exchange information, to being a bunch of timid mice, always tiptoeing around the big companies hoping that we won't say something that they'll object to. SELF CENSORSHIP CAN HURT! That is, if by 'self censorship' you mean 'doing what I think the companies want me to do'. If a certain company decides that it ought to cut itself off from the net because information it considers classified is being distributed on that same net, it is merely removing another source of information for itself. True, we will lose a small number of people and contacts from this one company. But the company will lose the entire net. In any sort of loss/gain comparison, it seems fairly obvious that it is the company that loses more than the net. This leaves aside the point that I don't think a company would do such a thing. Again, one assumes that its not the employees of the company that are revealing this information. Does the company really think that by not letting their employees speak on the net, they're going to stop other people from breaking their code? It just doesn't make sense. Well, that's enough for now. I haven't been following this whole thread, so I hope I haven't said too much that's been said before, nor mis-stated anyone's position too badly. However, what I understood from the above post (and the previous one by the same author) was something that I couldn't just let go by. > Martin. -- Draphsor vo'drun-Aelf draphsor@portia.stanford.edu