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From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: Re: Restrictions on Stargate - what is sold is telecommunications
Message-ID: <759@looking.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Mar-87 17:45:42 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.759
Posted: Tue Mar 17 17:45:42 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Mar-87 02:17:20 EST
References: <103@stargate.UUCP> <301@gaia.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

This may be an area in which the law is behind the technology.  We should
examine what *should* be rather than what exists among the out of date
laws.

What the stargate -- and other satellite folks -- really want to sell
is *telecommunications*.  They really have not desire to sell or own
the transmitted materials.

Now telecommunication is a valid service, and it costs money to set it
up, and the equipment that does it is privately owned, so in my moral books,
telecommunications are a thing that deserve to be protected.

The service provided by stargate is, in theory, the moving of information
from point A (say, Atlanta) to point B (say, a customer in Los Angeles).

It seems perfectly fair that Stargate and the LA customer could enter into
a contract that says,
   "I will move the information you request from Atlanta to you, so long as
   you pay me and don't resell (or give away) this moving."

Perhaps some are suggesting that this sort of contract be illegal because
it would forbid the reselling (or giving away) of PD information that was
moved for a fee.  The point here is that what is being sold is the moving
of the information, and you can't give away that moved information without
also giving away the moving of it which is inherently within it.

Now such a restriction isn't a restriction on the information itself.
Anybody else is free to move the information (if it is PD) from Atlanta
to wherever they want.  By why should it be illegal to restrict further
motions of information that could not have existed without the original
telecommunications service.

If you wish to make such a contract illegal, you will seriously hurt
the economies of such telecommunications.   Any customer for telecommunications
of PD information will have to be charged enough to pay for telecommunications
to EVERYBODY in their nearby region.  This would wreck the industry.

If you are using a service, and the generators of that service request
compensation, you should pay them or not make use of their service.
Is this not a valid moral principle?
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473