Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!pyramid!epimass!jbuck
From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Commercial software in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Summary: shareware on the net is unsolicited merchandise
Message-ID: <2987@epimass.EPI.COM>
Date: 20 Mar 89 17:40:24 GMT
References: <6191@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2967@looking.UUCP> <6203@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2971@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 48

In article <2971@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>That is a tough question.  On one hand one might argue that it is up to
>the readers to decide if they want to pay for shareware.  The sad comment
>is that we correctly expect most people to use the shareware and not pay
>for it.

But you're making an assumption here that hasn't really been tested legally,
and in the case of Usenet may not be ethically valid as well.

According to US law, if someone mails me unsolicited merchandise along with
a demand for payment, I may disregard the demand for payment and keep the
merchandise and use it as I see fit.  Are the shareware people aware
of this?  Usenet does not work the same way as a standard bulletin board.
Even with standard bulletin boards, the shareware folks, it could be argued,
are on shaky ground unless they have the agreement of the "sysop" together
with a way of informing users beforehand that what they are downloading
is shareware and there is a required fee.  (As to what the real law is,
no one knows, lawyer or not.  There hasn't been a court case yet that I
know of).

So here I am, running a Usenet node and my company is paying phone bills
and UUNET fees to move this stuff around.  I contend that any shareware
I am sent is unsolicited merchandise.  Given this, I reject any notion that
I can be compelled to pay for its use.

So what if the poster of the software is not the owner?  Then the owner's
rights have been violated severely by the act of posting, since a lot of
users are going to use the software without paying.  So Rahul's position
is perfectly appropriate -- he's basically protecting the net from all these
legal hassles by refusing to post shareware that demands a required fee.
He's also protecting the owners of the shareware.

There's also the ethical question.  Lots of sites are paying big phone bills
to move this stuff around.  Why should they be forced to subsidize shareware
authors without their permission?  That is, thanks to the well-connected
sites, tens of thousands of potential customers are reached.  Without this
subsidy, the shareware author would not make as much money.

So as for Brad's question:

>Should the moderator pre-judge the morals of the readers?

The better question is: should the moderator risk a bunch of legal hassles
and endless flame wars about whether shareware conditions are legally
enforceable or ethically valid, or avoid all of this mess by simply refusing
to post software that demands a mandatory contribution?
-- 
-- Joe Buck	jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck