[9983] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Inmac, junk mail, and the death of the net.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Robinson)
Tue Feb 1 12:30:34 1994
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 12:16:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
To: Stephen D Crocker <crocker@tis.com>
Cc: Everyone Else Lurking on Com-Priv <com-priv@psi.com>
>From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@TDR.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
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On Thu Jan 06, 1994 6:44 pm EST, Stephen D Crocker <crocker@tis.com>,
was heard belching out the following:
> This was, indeed, the scheme I had in mind...
> > From: Bill Sommerfeld <sommerfeld@apollo.hp.com>
> > To: crocker@tis.com, spike@coke.std.com
> > cc: com-priv@psi.com
> > Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 17:45:04 -0500
> > Subject: Re: Inmac, junk mail, and the death of the net.
> >
> > It occurs to me that an appropriate semi-technical solution to this
> > problem is to have finger or fingerd put a copyright notice in its
> > output barring redistribution or resale of the information.
Won't work. Have you forgotten the court case of _Feist v. Rural
Telephone_ ruling that telephone directories' subscriber listings lack the
minimum level of originality to be copyrightable? Or did you know about
that one? I remember it well because it upset 70+ years of precedent of
the *exact opposite* in _Pacific Telephone v. Leon_. I think a finger
daemon reply, being just a list of names off of a system - and no
originality in the list - would also fail to be copyrightable under the
holding in _Feist_. His comment on "phone directory" seems to clearly
nail that idea in its coffin.
> > This allows the "normal" uses of finger (such as a phone directory
> > substitute, or to find if your friend is logged in prior to
> > initiate a "talk" link), but prohibits the kind of abuses folks
> > here are complaining about.
> >
> > If you also borrow a trick from the mailing list vendors,
> > and embed dummy names in the finger output to catch "cheaters",
> > this might work fairly well...
Assuming you can find them. Given the ability to pipe data to/from other
countries, it's possible to find that a mailing was drop shipped from a
processor (who simply sends out mail) in one country, mailing catalogs for
a distributor in a third country that is merely a licensee of a fourth
company that buys the names from someone else. Who gets sued, and how do
you get service on them?
> Yup. And it's possible to strengthen this a bit by crafting a
> standard clause which is used by lots of sites and then organizing
> some group of lawyers to go after violators. Or, perhaps it might
> occur in reverse: Some group of lawyers can offer a standard clause
> to its clients and then be ready to pursue violators.
You could only make a restriction clause applicable to someone whom, in some
manner, has agreed to the clause, e.g. by being a customer or subscriber
and contracting with you. I doubt that a court would hold a third-party
liable for violating a restriction they are not party to.
---
Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
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