Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!well!dsmall
From: dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Copyrights and Commercial Networks and Usenet
Message-ID: <15200@well.UUCP>
Date: 24 Dec 89 07:42:38 GMT
References: <1989Dec21.041439.24056@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <957@crash.cts.com>
Reply-To: dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 37


The base note, SIGH!, discusses Genie's anthology-copyright on USENET notes.

	Diane, I would appreciate it if you would stop discussing a
HYPOTHETICAL thing -- GEnie attempting to place an anthology copyright on
USENET notes -- in such "guilty until proven innocent" tones.

	The entire USENET<-> Genie link is *experimental*. If the management
there was not VERY flexible and open to new ideas, it wouldn't be there at
all. I fully expect to be able to drop them a line after they get back from
holidays, and come back to the newsgroup here with the assurance they will
do no such thing. I'll even get 'em to sign it in blood.

	Look, they WANT this to work out! Not to leech profits, not for
base motives, but to provide their users with services. Anyone who thinks that
at $6/hr GEnie is ripping people off has never run a mainframe plus nationwide
telephone access service -- it's cheap. I have found GEnie willing to
support EXTREMELY experimental and new ideas in RoundTables, that won't make
money (if at all) for years.

	They're in trying, Diane, and you're in here poisoning the water,
telling us what Dark and Evil things await.

	Diane, if they try *ONCE* to put an anthology copyright on USNET
notes, I'll have nothing more to do with them. There, you can hold me to
it.

	Now would you PLEASE let there be a little "innocent until proven
guilty" here in this link discussion? I know USENET has been burned by CIS
and BIX (I know *now*, not 4 days ago); but give GEnie a chance -- and me,
too, huh?

	I'm very tired of paranoid views of large companies always being
profit-mongering evil entities, out to stamp out anything good in the world.
Such stuff belongs in tired propaganda.

	-- sincerely, Dave Small / Gadgets