[9073] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Regarding Clarinet and copyright
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jane D. Smith)
Wed Dec 15 20:08:02 1993
From: Jane D. Smith <jds@mcnc.org>
To: fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald)
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 20:02:23 EST
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <199312160032.AA11271@elf.wang.com>; from "Tom Fitzgerald" at Dec 15, 93 7:32 pm
> > The first rumors I heard about Clarinet, oh so very long ago, were that
> > they would take the wealth of information from Usenet, clean out the cruft
> > and nonsense, and provide a distilled, high-content valued added
> > publication.
>
> You may be remembering the "In Moderation Network", which was supposed to
> start up at about the same time as Clarinet, but never got off the ground.
No, this is exactly as I remember the early Clarinet announcements.
> It met a lot of resistance from people who disliked the idea that their
> articles, which they posted without pay, would be selected and forwarded by
> someone who would make money off them. Many people began putting copyright
> notices in their postings, along the lines of "this article may only be
> forwarded if all other articles in the newsgroup are forwarded as well".
>
To my knowledge, Brad Templeton has as much respect for intellectual
property rights as anyone I know offering 'value added' services on the
Internet, for which he has not gained much popularity among those who
believe that everything posted to the Internet is automatically in the
public domain. It was those believers -- not the people who were concerned
about adhering to current copyright law, which says that once in fixed
form, intellectual property is automatically assigned copyright protection
(in the U.S.) -- who were most disturbed by Clarinet's original proposition.
"Free speech" and "public speaking" were among those principles used as
justification for the people who appended such copyright *restrictions.* If
Brad is lurking, I urge him to speak for himself.
> This may be a problem with any future filtered feed service as well - or
> maybe usenet has evolved to the point where people don't care about this
> any more. (Somehow I doubt it.)
Many people care very much about 'this.' I have no doubt that copyright
law will evolve to accommodate networked information distribution, but the
debates still rage, and contrary case law is only now beginning to emerge.
Increased commercialization of the Internet, however, should speed along some
definitive resolutions to the controversy.
For references, Clarinet offers a policy statement, Terry Carroll has
produced a Copyright FAQ, and the entire text of both the Copyright law
and CONTU guidelines are available online. No, I don't have the cites in
front of me, but upon request, I will provide them.
--Jane
