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From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet
Keywords: The wholesale capturing of Usenet by GEnie
Message-ID: <50076@bbn.COM>
Date: 24 Dec 89 03:33:11 GMT
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <1989Dec21.000041.6034@ns.network.com> <8069@spudge.UUCP>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
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johnm@spudge.UUCP (John Munsch) writes:

>This article is Copyright 1989 by John Munsch, All Rights Reserved.

>Note the above, it is a copyright.  It is the answer for all of you who wish
>to end of GEnie's abuse of the net (an abuse which if left unanswered would
>surely spread to other pay networks as well).

Note the above --- legal advice from someone who clearly has at best a
weak grasp of the law.  In the US, the "copyright" notice has not been
necessary for some time now [although it might help if you actually go
to court, but it is difficult to imagine any posting-infringement case
being worth a lawyer's time].  Second, lots of luck showing some kind
of damages if a posting of yours has its copyright 'infringed'.  Third,
if you are REALLY reserving all of your rights, then your posting is
not going to get very far, since you have just precluded its being
propagated.  [Either my site has the 'right' to send your posting on to the
next site or it does not, right?  Did you reserve that right or not?]

Altogether, this matter is fairly complicated, has never been tested in
court with or without a copyright notice [far as I've ever heard], and
anyone who is worried about this idiotic problem (and I confess that I
cannot understand what it is that gets you folks so worked up) who
thinks that there is a "simple" legal solution is deluding themself
[and only betraying how little of the legal situation they really
understand].

Give it a rest, for crissake....  if you think your postings are worth money,
go try to sell them; if you're posting for the hell of it, let your posting go
where it may and forget about it.  Geez...

   /Bernie\