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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!netnews.upenn.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!karl
From: karl@sugar.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: rec.humor.d,news.admin
Subject: Re: Introduction to REC.HUMOR.FUNNY -- Monthly Posting
Summary: copyright issues are explosive; let's wait
Message-ID: <3400@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 7 Feb 89 01:52:44 GMT
References: <2712@looking.UUCP> <1449@papaya.bbn.com> <166@deltam.UUCP> <14363@cup.portal.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 47

Brad seems to be asserting a copyright for two different reasons.  One is
to protect himself (?) from attack as the moderator of rec.humor.funny.
The other appears to be to stake out a percentage of profits being derived
by others through the resale of r.h.f.

It won't work, not yet.  We're not ready for it.  The issues this raises are 
numerous and will only be hashed out at great length in the usual net.fashion.
For example, you seem to imply that you're eventually going to strong-arm 
Portal and other pay-for-play systems to pay you to carry the group.  What about
the owners of all the systems who paid money out of their pockets to pass your
group to the pay systems?  Shouldn't they (we) be compensated, too?  This
arrangement, like shareware, attempts to establish an end-to-end payment
between user and author (or user and "compilation copyright holder"), bypassing
the people who spend their money to store and/or forward the material for you.

To be fair, shouldn't everyone have to pay end-to-end charges for any mail
they send?  Perhaps under a less-cooperative (but more "fair") arrangement,
you should have to pay some fee for it to be carried all over, and you should 
get paid any time someone reads it.  If not enough people read it to cover your 
costs, you lose money.  This would be more in line with conventional publishing.

I have never been comfortable with "compilation copyrights" in the
first place.  The first time I ever heard of them was in regard to a
company selling disks of public domain PC software for a few bucks each.  
Since it was all public domain, others started selling copies of their disks.  
As I understood it, they successfully claimed that their ordering of
what programs went on what disks was itself copyrighted, such that
others could not produce disks of PD software matching theirs.  

What I don't like about it, and I don't mean any offense in this to Brad,
is that there is'nt a lot of value added in producing the compilation.
I think Brad is really funny; "Dear Emily Postnews" is a classic.  
Nonetheless, many others could do nearly as good a job, and there are
probably quite a few who'd be willing to try.

The reason to moderate a group, as mentioned by the moderator of the telecom
digest, is for fun, because there are few other rewards to be had from it,
and once it ceases to be fun, one should probably stop doing it.

I hope all this doesn't cause Brad to leave the net in anger.  I do think he's
unilaterally decided something that we, those of us who affect the policies of
the operation of the machines of the net, are not ready to sign up to without
a good deal more thought, comment and flaming.
-- 
-- uunet!sugar!karl  | "We've been following your progress with considerable 
-- karl@sugar.uu.net |  interest, not to say contempt."  -- Zaphod Beeblebrox IV
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