Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl
From: karl@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet
Message-ID: <75140@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 24 Dec 89 02:42:56 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <1989Dec21.000041.6034@ns.network.com>
	<8069@spudge.UUCP>
Organization: OSU
Lines: 26

johnm@spudge.uucp writes:
   There are others on the net who have expressed that they have no objection
   to for profit distribution of their articles.  This is fine for them, but
   unfortunately this is one situation where every single posting member of
   Usenet is affected and unless the agreement is UNANIMOUS it cannot continue.

[hee-hee]

There's three-quarters of a million people reading and posting to the
Usenet, and here I see you mention unanimous agreement as though it
were eminently within our grasp.

[cough]

This not only ignores the self-evident fact that no unanimous
agreement is possible on _anything_ amidst such a horde, but also
ignores the existing cases of Portal, the WELL, and UUNET, all of whom
turn a profit (or, as Rick informed me yesterday, are permitted an
"excess of revenues over expenses" by the IRS).  If you already, and
always, include redistribution restriction signatures, then perhaps
(and only perhaps) you have a case to make, and it is true that this
particular article had a copyright notice; but the very next article I
saw from you, on the very same subject, lacked such a notice.  How
seriously do you expect your position to be taken?

--Karl