Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!epimass!jbuck
From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Changes to the monthly postings (for rec.humor.funny)
Keywords: administivia
Message-ID: <2847@epimass.EPI.COM>
Date: 3 Feb 89 18:30:46 GMT
References: <2706@looking.UUCP> <2844@epimass.EPI.COM> <2714@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 49

In article <2714@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>Recently I have been put through a great deal of personal stress,
>considerable cost in telephone and legal expenses, ill health and
>literally weeks of lost time because of my dedication to rec.humor.funny.

I'm sorry to hear that, but it simply isn't relevant.

>All this because I have worked hard to give you folks, for free, something
>you tell me you enjoy a lot.   After all these attacks, I had to ask myself
>why I was submitting myself to such abuse, defamation and personal hardship.

You are only a gateway.  It's the people that post the jokes that are giving
it to us.  You are replaceable.

>So I decided to affirm that the group is mine, and that I control it,
>and that if somebody wanted to charge money for reading it, I have it in
>my authority to control that, too. 

Oh, rot.  I recommend that everyone include a GNU-style copyright (you
can only redistribute this article if your recipients can as well) to all
submissions, for both rec.humor and rec.humor.funny.

> So I have affirmed my compilation
>copyright(*) in the group, and said all free usenet sites can carry it, and
>that other sites have to ask.

You are asserting that a particular principle of copyright law applies
in this case.  But you are not distributing a compilation.  You are
distributing articles ONE AT A TIME, almost exactly as received except
for a new header and .signature.  If you used a digest form you might
have an argument.  Your book is a compilation and compilation
copyright applies there, because it's a book and there is a lot of law
that applies to books.  There haven't been any test cases at all about
USENET, so any assertion you make about what the law is is debatable.

>If you're right in saying
>that the net will laugh in my face for doing this, then I will leave.

You're welcome to stay if you act like a good net.citizen.  If you aren't,
you are replaceable.  I, for one, will continue to pass all groups I'm
currently passing along to my downstream sites, even if you should "forbid"
one from receiving it.  You have no power to make your decisions stick,
and since this is an anarchy, that's all that matters.

-- 
- Joe Buck	jbuck@epimass.epi.com, or uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck,
		or jbuck%epimass.epi.com@uunet.uu.net for old Arpa sites

Life is not a dress rehearsal.