Pardon the quotes from multiple messages... I hope to be saving bandwidth...
> Which does not imply that anyone who feels like it is free to
>redistribute the
> contents of that forum. If you think otherwise, please point us to the
> relevant copyright law.
Maybe my understanding of findmail.com is incorrect, but I saw them as
something like DejaNews.
Are they like DejaNews? A publicly accessible search engine?
> >Those who ultimately will decide these issues use predecessors,
> >precedents. What would be the forerunner for the notion that anything
> >you write to a `public forum' may be freely copied?
Are they selling the content, or making it freely available?
> Think of building a cd-rom archive of Time Magazine articles. Think how
> quickly Time would own your car and computer....
Except that I wouldn't think of Time magazine as a public forum, since it
doesn't accept (regularly) contributions from all of the readers.
> To use Usenet as an example, when you post an article, you set in
> motion a very large chain of automatic events which result in copying
> of your (implicitly copyrighted) work. Historically and currently,
> this has consisted of copies on news servers (the normal case),
> news-to-mail gateways, magnetic-tape-based feeds, news-to-Web
> gateways, online and offline private archives, online public archives
> (e.g., DejaNews), archival media (e.g., CD-ROMs) and distribution by
> printed copy. All of these are (or have been) normal ways of
> distributing netnews articles.
I'm not saying _all_ mailing lists are public forums, but some are designed
as such, including most of the lists I run. Some obviously aren't. For
example, a mailing list which distributes a monthly newsletter on cooking
would obviously be copywrighted and protected. While anyone can subscribe
and the information is freely available, it's clearly not a public forum.
Then look at this list... when I post it I don't know exactly who is
reading it and I don't care... it's my contribution to the forum.
I don't think someone can resell this content. However, if I contribute it
freely to a public forum, I do it understanding that it may end up on
search engines and archives.
~Josh
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right... or
right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak
in from behind? Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find, for a
mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
- Dr. Seuss
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