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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1994-02-01 - Re: archiving on inet

Header Data

From: Joe Thomas <jthomas@access.digex.net>
To: Jason Zions <jazz@hal.com>
Message Hash: 6bf6515cedb1273834dc07634e52b033e2f755a32393737b3612a6ef16787c3d
Message ID: <Pine.3.05.9402011809.B17142-b100000@access1.digex.net>
Reply To: <9402012021.AA01756@jazz.hal.com>
UTC Datetime: 1994-02-01 23:35:29 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 15:35:29 PST

Raw message

From: Joe Thomas <jthomas@access.digex.net>
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 15:35:29 PST
To: Jason Zions <jazz@hal.com>
Subject: Re: archiving on inet
In-Reply-To: <9402012021.AA01756@jazz.hal.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9402011809.B17142-b100000@access1.digex.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Tue, 1 Feb 1994, Jason Zions wrote:

> > So answer the question again, what is the 
> >difference in paying an internet provider for access to usenet, and 
> >paying a cd-rom provider for access to usenet?
> . . .
> Better yet, it's the difference between watching a program on HBO when you
> are getting that service legally (i.e. paying for it) and buying a tape of
> the same program from a friend who has HBO. Whether or not you also have
> legal access to HBO, the sale of the tape infringes on the copyright of the
> program.

Several variations on this analogy have been posted, but I still don't see
how it applies to Usenet.

If HBO allowed anyone who could receive its signal to pass it along to
anyone else, without a prior license agreement, I would say it would have
little grounds for trying to prevent the sale of programs taped off HBO.

But to attempt to bring this back from misc.legal to cypherpunks territory...
Have people here thought about what happens to the concept of intellectual
property in an environment of strong cryptography and cheap anonymity? 
When there's no way for the government to enforce Berne on movies and
electronic books, what hope is there for Usenet postings?

Joe

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