Re: [OT] Silly (copyright?) claim by "Galen".

From: Galen (galennews_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/23/05 

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:23:28 -0500

In news:dm07lp$f47$1@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca,
Walter Roberson <roberson@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> had this to say:

 My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

> In article <eJgCHR77FHA.3976@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl>,
> Galen <galennews@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I realize you have difficulty admitting to being incorrect but,
>> well, the truth is that my signature is correct in every way shape
>> and form.
>
> You don't seem to have replied to my point about Netscape Messenger,
> a browser with a built-in newsreader.
>
>> Please note that if you're reading this in a browser and the domain
>> is not owned by Microsoft then this work is being used without
>> permission.
>
> Galen, your "the domain" does not have sufficient context for your
> signature to be correct "in every way shape and form". "the" domain?
> What domain? The domain of my home network? The domain of my
> ISP? The domain of my workplace? The domain of the site that kindly
> allows my workplace to pull down Usenet News?
<snip>

I took the current Netscape for a spin. I don't know where your finding that
option. A search of the Netscape help site (oddly their help's online)
didn't reveal any such options and using the email settings didn't enable
news. This is version 8 that I am using. In all fairness I can, on the other
hand, use newsgroups in Opera so your point basically remains the same
though I'm not entirely sure what it is? In Opera, for example, we are still
pointed to an NNTP server, not taking the content from it's original format
and changing it to another language, not making any pretense of the source
of information being at a site, not charging access to it by itself (and I
do consider the space on my monitor being taken up by ads as a form of
payment as would be submission of personal information for permission to
post, etc), and would not bother me at all. So, should someone develop such
a critter that functioned like a browser and accessed newsgroups I'd not
have a single problem with that. Why? Because the domain is still the same,
the content hasn't been altered. There's no pretense that they're the
owner/creator of the content, there's no effort to rebrand it, and they're
still going to the same address that the content was posted to. A search of
your email address at Google brings up 1530 results - I'm betting that the
vast majority of those are sites which are leeching newsgroup posts. While
you may not care or you even enjoy it (did you know those get harvested so
that you get loads of spam?) the point is that they're doing so without your
permission UNLESS you gave it to them. The basic human (and legal I suppose
but I'm not worried much about that) act would be to ask before taking.
While this isn't a tangable property it's still a property and I suspect
that if this were a physically manifest property being stolen from you that
you'd have an entirely different view. The truth is that you DO own this and
you CAN place restrictions on it if you want. My point isn't at all about
restrictions - it's about at least being given the common decency of asking
before taking something. A task that is well and beyond what a person can
accomplish. I will also note that I make exceptions for cross-posted in that
when they are I have no control over that and accept that as having been my
choice to knowingly post to a cross-posted response though even then MY
permission has not been granted to do any more than to propagate that post
to that specific group.

It is my opinion, and this is just my opinion, that a simple human effort
would have been acceptable and trust me I've searched to see if any of them
have ever done so. If I were to own a site and wish to leech the newsgroups
(a great way to get traffic and thus make money from ads so it's not really
a bad idea) I would note the groups that I wanted to include. I would then
post a message in an announcement format showing my site and announcing my
wish to copy the posts. I would then read the responses and judge from those
responses as to my options. If it seemed that the vast majority (I'd likely
insist on it being a complete agreement from at least the people who took
the time to respond) agreed to this then I'd go ahead and do it. If someone
didn't want me to do so (regardless of their reasoning) then I'd filter out
the username of anyone who had a problem with it. Additionally, I'd go so
far as to state CLEARLY that the information had not all come from the site,
I'd clearly label it as newsgroups, and I'd provide a method of contacting
me or automatically removing your posts based on your username, email, or IP
address range. For a site to take the content and use it to generate an
income from ad impressions or click throughs this is not an unreasonable
request in my opinion. I'm sure that there's other ways to filter out people
who don't wish to BUT (just like the no-archive) the point is that if they
don't want to they shouldn't have to. It should not be an opt-out service at
all, it should be an opt-in service. If someone takes something from you and
then tells you that you have to go through some process/work to have it
given back to you that doesn't make it any less a theft. But, well, that's
just my opinion. 

-- 
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
Please note that if you're reading this in a browser and the domain is
not owned by Microsoft then this work is being used without permission.
Access MS Newsgroups :
http://kgiii.info/windows/all/general/msnewsgroups.html

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