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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!tektronix!cae780!amdcad!sun!imagen!jay
From: jay@imagen.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Copyright status of the netnews software
Message-ID: <940@imagen.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Mar-87 22:51:57 EST
Article-I.D.: imagen.940
Posted: Mon Mar  2 22:51:57 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Mar-87 20:47:16 EST
References: <962@osiris.UUCP> <1717@hoptoad.uucp> <43093@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <1625@kitty.UUCP>
Organization: Imagen Corp., Santa Clara CA
Lines: 27
Xref: utgpu news.software.b:338 misc.legal:705
Summary: Perhaps preventing commercial plundering of public domain software?

In article <1625@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:

->  [  Summary:  Brian Reid, d/b/a mumble mumble, is wasting his time and
->     money copyrighting USENET sofware for the good of the USENET
->     community, since it's prohibitively troublesome and expensive to
->     take legal action to protect one's copyrights anyway . . .  -- j.j. ]
-> . . .
-> 
-> 	Please bear in mind that I am neither putting down nor flaming
-> either Brian Reid or Rick Adams; I believe they did what they genuinely felt
-> was in the best interests of the USENET community.  However, I feel that any
-> effort expended in making any copyright attempt for this purpose is wasted.

But doesn't the existence of this copyright preclude any big greedy commercial
software vendor from plagiarizing the code and selling it under its own
copyright and enforcing that copyright, which might otherwise happen if Brian
hadn't created the above-discussed copyright?  I wonder if maybe that is
what Brian had in mind?  

(The point is, Big Greedy Company could plagiarize if Brian can't afford
to protect his rights -- but this way, if Big Greedy Company tried to enforce
_its_ claimed copyright, it wouldn't have a leg to stand on.)

-- 

-- From the alternate universe . . .      -- Jay
                                             ...{sun,decwrl,ucbvax}!imagen!jay