Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mdcbbs!devsim.mdcbbs!jmi
From: jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com ((JM Ivler) MDC - Douglas Aircraft Co. Long Beach, CA.)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet (an alternative view)
Message-ID: <489.2590d0b9@devsim.mdcbbs.com>
Date: 21 Dec 89 12:46:48 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Organization: McDonnell Douglas M&E, Cypress CA
Lines: 62

In article <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com>, tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) writes:
> canada@crash.cts.com (Diane Barlow Close) writes:
> 
>>If you want a TRUE example of the hacker ethic, then read a bit about 
>>Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation.  *They* represent the 
>>hacker ethic!
> 
> But they charge you for the tape when you want a new copy of Emacs, do
> they not?  So what's the real difference?  GEnie charges you for your
> time on their modem, FSF charges you for their tape.  In both cases they
> are charging you for the medium and the support costs, not the information
> (unless you consider the other costs indirectly charging for the info,
> in which case FSF, uunet, stargate and all the rest are doing the same
> thing).
> 
>>Write Dave Small and voice your objections TODAY, before it's too late and
>>Usenet becomes GEnie (and you have to pay through the nose for what was
>>formerly free)!
> 
> A lot of people already pay through the nose!  How does your site get
> the news feed now?  You must pay some kind of transport costs (phone
> calls, modem charges, internet fees, disk space costs, whatever).
> 
> USENET IS NOT FREE!
> 

This is an interesting concept. If I were to start a service that allowed user 
to login and post information (gee, a bbs) and then also provided a feed from 
USENET (one way) to these users for them to read, *you* wouldn't have a 
problem. And if I charged them money for this service (and made a profit), you 
still wouldn't have a problem. 

Well that is a problem for me. USENET is based upon the free trensfer of 
information. *No one* is "profiting" from the resale of that information. Yes 
there are costs associated to it, but those are the costs of doing business, 
and no one person profits from those charges (telcos do, modem manufactures do, 
but on single entity does). What is being proposed is a profit making 
corporation wants to take what we freely exchange and use that to make a 
profit. That is morally wrong and not in line with the purpose of this network!

While there is no way to stop them from doing this to all postings, a method 
that has been seggested that would limit thier ability to do this by the 
inclusion of a specific copywrite notice as part of a posting. A possible line 
to be added to each posting would be:

    (c) Copyright 1989 (all rights reserved) by [your name here]
  This information can be distributed only if there is no financial gain made
  by the parties distributing this information from such distribution.

>>-> 	Well, enough said. I hope this leads to good things -- GEnie users
>>-> getting good information on time, for instance.
>>It's obvious from this sentence who is benefiting from this ``exchange'' of
>>information -- GEnie and no one else.
> 
> You obviously are not a GEnie user, and have no feeling for them whatsoever.
> They could benefit greatly from such feeds.
> 

So does the profit making GEnie. It is not that I do not care about the users 
of the service, it is blatently unfair for one to profit (and I must assume 
that GEnies goal is to make a profit) from what was intended to be shared 
freely.