Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!gatech!mcdchg!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Protection Against Abuse of Messages
Message-ID: <7665@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 9 Feb 89 04:57:48 GMT
References: <2726@looking.UUCP> <7651@chinet.chi.il.us> <2213@van-bc.UUCP>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 36

In article <2213@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes:
>Your idea for a Usenet wide community trust is an interesting one, but is it
>really needed. What is wrong with the moderators protecting their own turf
>so to speak simply by holding the compilation copyright. Compuserve for one
>is quite unlikely to do anything as long as you mention those words. They
>would be afraid to jeopradize their own rights.

Where the problem would come up is with things like unmoderated groups and
messages of any kind where backbones or sysadmins (involved with news at
their site) are concerned.

Every moderator doing his/her own thing would lead to confusion. And who
would protect the unmoderated groups? No, we are all in this together and
I think if there is to be some formal protection for the community then
it should be net/system-wide.

What happens with messages cross posted to moderated and unmoderated groups?
Who controls it then?

I still suggest that if this is the way to go, then there should be one or
two, perhaps three or four persons widely respected by everyone who function
as the nominal copyright holders for the entire output. I would sheild
them from personal attacks with corporate status, assuming they themselves
did not act wilfully against the net.

I would compile-copyright the whole thing as of 12:01 AM each day and place
the copyright in the hands of the trustees of the Trust. I would modify
the software to plainly state that everything herein is compile-copyrighted,
and may be used freely, with no further permission required by members of
Usenet for their own purposes, etc.


-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / US Mail: 60690-1570 (personal zip code)
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956