Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1991 09:03:50 GMT From: Jim Budler Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Supreme Court: White Pages Not Copyrightable Message-ID: Organization: Silvar-Lisco, Inc. Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 279, Message 4 of 12 Lines: 45 In article rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com writes: > Jim Bubler wrote that a phone number once assigned belongs to a ^_ that's a /d/ > customer. While I am on his side, his statement isn't true. Telephone > numbers remain the property of telco and can be changed at their whim, > etc. Sorry, Jim, but we basically have no rights, so to speak, when it > comes to "our" phone numbers. > [Moderator's Note: You are quite correct. Every phone book says it in > these words, more or less, "Whenever, in the conduct of its business, > the Company finds it desirable to change the number, etc ..." PAT] I agree we have no rights. 8^( But whether the phone number belong to the phone company or not, the right to associate that number to my name should not belong to the phone company. What I tried to articulate was that now that the Supreme Court has taken away their right to claim copyright on an expression of that association of name to number, they will chose to replace the income by charging people who wish their name to number association to be public. Thus everyone listed in white pages will have paid for that publication and the phone company will have made their bucks, and the copying will be an extension of their customer's desire of that name to number association being public information. And therefore my desire to be non-published will become free. jim P.S. Bubler isn't bad, I usually get Butler, of course, but I've also been called Butter, and Budder. 8^) Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com Silvar-Lisco +1.408.991.6115 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086