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From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.space
Subject: Re: Article on USENET in the for-real press
Message-ID: <20702@styx.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jun-86 23:48:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.20702
Posted: Sun Jun 22 23:48:32 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Jun-86 04:42:17 EDT
References: <1463@brl-smoke.ARPA> <109@ora.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Distribution: net
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 30
Xref: linus net.news:4192 net.space:5607
Summary: (Essentially all) Usenet articles are public domain

In article <109@ora.UUCP> tim@ora.UUCP (Tim O'Reilly) writes:
> [Discussion of use of real netnews articles in DEC publication...]
> . . .
> I am the author of the article in question; I made the assumption that
> material posted to Usenet was effectively published information, and
> therefore subject to the fair use rule in reprinting material in
> reviews et al.

Right conclusion, wrong legal reasoning. Tim is correct that the
permission of the authors was not necessary. [Whether he should have
done so as a matter of courtesy is orthagonal to the legal question.]
The question is not whether the articles are "published" (they are)
but whether they are in the public domain. Material that is published
without copyright notice, and without evidence that the copyright
notice was inadvertantly omitted, is in the the public domain. [Yes, there 
are some trivial exceptions to this, and yes, there are cases where
distribution does not comprise publication, but they're not involved
here.] 

Reprinting the articles in question does not fall under the "fair
use" doctrine, which applies only to copyrighted material. Tim (or any
of us) is perfectly free to make any use of public domain Usenet
articles, including republishing them for profit. About the only thing
you CAN'T do is assert intellectual property rights in them and try to
copyright them yourself. [Or use the information therein in an
unlawful manner, etc.]

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb