From: et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA   
      
   tim lindner (fake@example.com) writes:   
   > Frank Durda IV  wrote:   
   >   
   >> So to anyone who has or is doing this with USENET postings, please stop   
   >> taking such posts and re-posting them (unedited or otherwise) to any other   
   >> non-USENET venue.   
   >   
   > So Google Groups is violating your copyright? It fits the definition of   
   > "non-USENET venue" to me.   
   >   
   I don't know if that's what Frank is talking about, but I feel the google   
   archive is significantly different than from what he is definitely talking   
   about.   
      
   Just the other day, I found an old message of mine about something, and   
   it its origins as a newsgroup post is long gone.  I actually do consider   
   that "stealing", because they want to use my content but don't want to   
   give credit to where it came from.   
      
   At least it still has my name on it, though that means little since   
   my name is extremely common.  But other times in the past, I've found   
   posts of mine on websites (including one time a "message board" where   
   my content seemed to be part of a strategy to lure posters) where not   
   even my name was connected to it.   
      
   I once posted a long message explaining why one radio receiver did not   
   use an esoteric design scheme, and it landed on a website and the   
   subject header had been changed (maybe it was something in the body)   
   so at first glance I seemed to be saying the opposite.   
      
   If I do a search on my handful of email addresses over a decade, most   
   of the websearch hits are of various attempts to archive specific   
   newsgroups, and I consider those borderline.  They keep the messages   
   intact, but their intent seems to be to "provide content" without the work.   
   And in some cases, they include weird interfaces to the newsgroups, so   
   posters can post from the website without realizing they are not posting   
   merely to that website.   
      
   The Google archive is different.  Because they are archiving all the   
   messages but spam and binaries.  This is no different from old style   
   archives that existed for specific newsgroups before Dejanews came   
   along in 1996, and isn't that much different from a newsserver with really   
   long retention time.  The context of the messages remains, and while   
   google is a little messy about making it clear where these messages   
   are from (or more to the point, that if someone posts from there, it   
   may not be clear what they are posting to, which can cause problems to   
   the newsgroups), it is relatively clear what it's all about.   
      
   Those rogue sites that archive messages, it often seems like they   
   want content because they can't generate it, which then leaves me   
   wondering what the purpose of the site is.  That makes me wonder if   
   they are hoping to get advertising, to milk our content.   
      
   Google, whether or not their primary interest is making money (I don't   
   know) at least provides a service, which beats out anything else.  Sure,   
   they get the use of my posts, but I also, for ten years (if we include   
   Dejanews before they went out of business) I've had the ability to do   
   searches of the newsgroups for very specific things, going back years and   
   even decades, and I can even retrieve old posts of mine that I should   
   have saved myself, but I didn't.  So for me, the google archive becomes   
   as cooperative as the newsgroups themselves, in that my "payment" of   
   messages gives me access to the archive that I do indeed use.   
      
   There are ways to deal with newsgroup posts without "stealing the content".   
   One could link to the message at the google archive, something I do from   
   time to time.  I'd certainly say "fair use" allows for snippets, as   
   long as where the snippet comes from is included.   
      
   But for Frank to find things he's written on some site somewhere that   
   he had no knowledge of, I think that's completely out of line.  A   
   decade ago, I found at a used book sale a book that collected articles   
   from Kilobaud, and found something I'd written. That was the first I   
   learned that something of mine had landed in a book, and that was close   
   to 20 years after the article was in the magazine.  They had the reprint   
   rights, but my feeling at the time I found the book was "well, they could   
   ahve told me...".  Whatever legalities enter into this, the least someone   
   could do is tell the poster that they are doing this.   
      
     Michel   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)