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From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: r.h.f (long)
Message-ID: <11661@gryphon.COM>
Date: 5 Feb 89 17:40:27 GMT
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 62

In article <1233@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes:
>
>In article <2854@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:
>
>>------------------------ OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT --------------------------
>>
>>This is an official announcement of a discussion period (2 weeks) to remove
>>rec.humor.funny from the Usenet.  The discussion period begins now, Fri Feb 3
>>17:15:27 CST 1989, and will run until February 17, 1989.   I'm sure you all
>>know by now (if you really read this far) how I feel on this matter.
>>

[more deleted]

>This is awful.  It is worse than stupid.  At least JEDR went to war
>because he has irreconcilable differences with Brad.  Now you and
>several others want to go to war over a MISUNDERSTANDING.  Will you
>PLEASE wait until you are hurt before you start crying.  You are going
>to accomplish JEDR's purpose for him when he couldn't do it himself.
>You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
>
>Brad has apparently consulted a lawyer.  It goes without saying that
>the results seem rather bizarre as does ANYTHING when lawyers get
>involved.  Read an insurance policy sometime.  Brad has provided
>himself some insurance against further attacks by JEDRs.  So far it
>seems entirely harmless.  All Brad's lawyer wants is to make it
>legally clear that if you read rec.humor.funny you do so at your own
>risk.  If you get offended, you have no recourse.  This apparently
>requires some sort of announcements such as Brad has been posting.
>
>This is completely obvious to anyone who can think.
>
>If Brad starts trying to charge sites for rec.humor.funny or any of
>your other fears actually materialize, THEN is the time to remove Brad
>as moderator of rec.humor.funny, not NOW.  Leave it alone.  Brad says
>that all of this is just for protection against JEDRs.  From the
>actual facts, this seems to be the case.  Why not just trust him until
>his actions prove otherwise?


This was my guess for Brads motivation of slapping a compilation
copyright on the group.

HOWEVER - it sets a very dangerous precedent. Brads wording
states the he ``wanted to reaffirm control over the group. The
group is mine'' is not within the spirit of USENET. If brad
want to save cover his ass from the JEDR's of the world he's
going to have to find another way.

ALSO, this is not a simple of case of defending himself from
JEDR's. His idead that ``if anybody is going to make money 
of this it's going to me'' violates the spirit of USENET 
on a second count.

Nobody makes a big fuss over alt.gourmand because Brian 
set up a corperation called ``the USENET community trust''
and slapped a compilation copyright on the group to
PREVENT commercialization of it.

-- 
                      ``Kern letters with a hacksaw''                
decwrl!gryphon!richard        killer!gryphon!richard       elroy!gryphon!richard