P3D Re: 3D-CD glitch...

[Peter Davis <pd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:27 PM 2/3/98 -0700, you wrote:
>|
>|It seems they didn't know their posts were available there either. I
>|tried this tack in the discussion, but did not have any luck.
>|
>
>Let me hasten to add that anyone posting through any mailing list
>at this site should have no "expectation of privacy" - it really
>*is* an analog of a world accessible bulletin board. I  assume
>that without a copyright attached to a message, it is freely accessible
>via the archives.

While this seems sensible and logical, the fact is that posting material on
the net does NOT put it in the public domain, any more than publishing it
in a magazine gives everyone the right to copy that magazine without
permission.

>As a practical matter, excluding messages which *are* copyrighted
>is unfeasible, so anyone desiring this option should unsubscribe
>(or at least make no postings).

Everthing your write is copyrighted as soon as you write it.  You can
choose to register the copyright or not by sending a few dollars to the
library of congress, but the fact is that, if you write it, you own it.

It might be possible to create some terms for joining the list which state
that anyone posting to the list gives permission for that posting to be
reproduced in various different forms, but you'd need a lawyer to draft the
wording, and I think it would be hard to come up with something that people
agree with.

-pd


--------
                             Peter Davis
        * New * cartoons and stuff at http://world.std.com/~pd
   Illustrators' valentines at http://world.std.com/~pd/valentines/ 


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