Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: In Moderation: A Moderator's Response
Message-ID: <41279@bbn.COM>
Date: 12 Jun 89 18:01:39 GMT
References: <41197@bbn.COM> <12113@well.UUCP> <41207@bbn.COM> <KARL.89Jun12111909@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 36

In article <KARL.89Jun12111909@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes:
}cosell@bbn.com writes:
}   I would argue that the only thing
}   I'm sure I can make an AIRTIGHT case for is to "copy" my work as part
}   of the generally accepted machinery of distributing *usenet*.  Once you
}   take my work OUT of usenet...
}
}I suggest that you are asking the wrong question.  The right question
}will at the very least revolve around, "What is Usenet, that one can
}define its `generally accepted machinery,' as well as what constitutes
}`within' and `without' it?"
...
}I submit the hypothesis that, for purposes of restricting what can and
}cannot be fed, "the Usenet" does not exist, and cannot be made to
}exist.  That is, "the Usenet" cannot be defined - there are too many
}hooks into the system, too many different ways of looking at the same
}thing, too many underlying transport mechanisms, to permit one to
}create such a definition.

I know all this, I wsa just groping for something that might make
sense--- by _your_ analysis (which is mostly correct, of course),
authors retain *no* rights: the act of posting to usenet essentially
gives anyone who can contrive to receive the posting the privilege of
doing anything they choose with it.  Can one draw some other conclusion
from your argument?   As soon as you allow that authors retain _some_
rights to a posting to usenet, you go right into the quicksand of having
to say what those rights *are*.

  [perhaps the folks that were so adamant at the time of the r.h.f debate
  that it was *not* proper for brad to pick up postings from random
  newsgroups and "republish" them in r.h.f could comment on this... clearly
  "in moderation" is more commercial than r.h.f's plans ever were, and is of 
  *no* use to usenet proper, what legal basis is there (or should there be),
  if any, for preventing such activities?]

  /b\