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Grex > Coop11 > #174: A motion to protect Grex from copyright infringement suits. | |
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| 25 new of 78 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 25 of 78:
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Jun 2 02:53 UTC 2000 |
If the policy isn't intended to authorize them to unscribble stuff without
the permission of the author, make that clear. As you've written it, it
says that the Grex staff can do whatever they want with the contents of
that file, at their discretion. You write well, and have previously said
that you understand legal documents, so I assumed that you intended to
give them the incredibly broad latitude you gave them. Statements like
"consistent with Grex values" (paraphrasing here) are so broad as to be
useless as guidelines. Some feel that refusing to allow any text to be
hidden once it's entered *is* a core Grex value.
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aruba
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response 26 of 78:
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Jun 2 03:12 UTC 2000 |
Joe, on Grex we have a long history of getting along well without needing to
make lengthy rules for what staff can and cannot do. We've trusted staff to
use good judgement, and it hasn't been a problem.
I'm well aware that the situation on M-Net has been very different. But
there's no need to assume that the problems there will be the same ones we
see here.
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other
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response 27 of 78:
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Jun 2 03:19 UTC 2000 |
Ultimately, what I'm trying to sort out here is *what* exactly are the values
that the policies should reflect, and what are the practices that, though
commonplace, should not be codified. I am loathe to tie the hands of staff
by policy which cannot necessarily foresee all possible situations. That also
is my reason for wanting to resort to making policy only if absolutely
necessary in any given circumstance.
Basically, the more we codify our practice in policy, the more we ossify Grex
itself, and by so doing, I think we'd be slowly killing it. Ergo, I want to
find a way to solve the problems of inconsistency in expectation and function
of commands and continuity and flow of discourse versus user ownership rights
without making grossly detailed policies to effect the solutions.
The upshot is that I would far rather see us deal with issues on a case-by-case
basis than strangle ourselves in the attempt to legislate solutions in
advance.
The process I'm trying to avoid within Grex is the same EXACT process I see
as the decline of liberty and democracy in the US. We legislate in the
attempt to solve problems before they become widespread without awareness of
the problems we create by that legislation, and simultaneously we sacrifice
liberty incrementally as we empower laws and policies instead of taking
responsibility for our decisions as individuals.
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janc
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response 28 of 78:
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Jun 2 05:26 UTC 2000 |
Well, everyone seems already to have determined (correctly) that the
proposal in response 0 is a terrible idea. Among other things, I think
it would allow Grex to republish people's postings in other media
without their permission. That wasn't Eric's intent, so I'm pleased he
withdrew it.
The second motion has problems too. I don't see why it is talking about
hide/expurgate. There haven't been any big complaints over the current
policy on that, so why legislate on it. Anyway, the only way I could
make viewing hidden responses any easier or more obvious in backtalk
would be to display them for you automatically, which would kind of
defeat the purpose.
I'd leave the "staff discretion" part out. It just doesn't need saying,
because all such issues have been decided by staff in the past. I don't
think the board or membership ever set a policy saying E-mail should be
private, or deciding what the exceptions to that are. Staff set those,
with due reference to the law of the land. A person's entry in the
censored log should be treated just like his email, or a depermitted
file in his directory. We aren't paving any new ground here.
I don't see the point of the time limit thing. Why is it better to
allow censorship for a week than to allow it forever?
This has all the problems of allowing censorship - I can mess up
continuity in a week just as well as in a lifetime. In fact, most of
the people who ever read a posting are probably reading within less than
a week, and once they read it, they'd never notice if you censored it.
It also has all the problems of not allowing censorship, if it takes a
person more than a week to change their mind.
So depending on the timing, we sometimes get one set of problems, and
sometimes get the other set of problems, and which we get in which case
is determined entirely by the clock, not by any kind of application of
good sense.
Though it shouldn't be a consideration, there may be problems
implementing the time limit. I'd do it in Backtalk if people want it,
and even if I didn't want to some other staffer could, because Grex has
a Backtalk source license. We don't have Picospan source. The vendor
(Marcus) may be willing to do Grex a favor and give us a version
modified to our specifications, but there is no guarantee of that. If
not, we either need to buy Yapp (really expensive), convince Dave Thaler
to donate Yapp (dunno if this is likely), or implement a new
command-line conferencing system. I could do a command-line version of
Backtalk. It's on my TODO list. I hadn't anticipated getting around to
it for years, since it would add little to the marketability of Backtalk
and wouldn't be all that much fun to do. How many years and how much
money is the Grex staff allowed to spend implementing this policy?
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pfv
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response 29 of 78:
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Jun 2 13:11 UTC 2000 |
Jan's right: "KISS" (keep it simple, stupid).
Either the log is depermed and periodically flushed - which
presumes authors own their text and are adults;
Or, the commands are disabled - which implies Grex is the owner
and does not care to treat the authors as adults and legal owners;
Or, the situation remains unresolved and static: satisfying folks
that seem unable to "free their minds".
It's gonna' be pretty difficult to convince folks to try bbs if
all we can say is: "It's like Uselessnet, but more parochial; It
presumes you give up all rights to your written material; and, the
Powers That Be manage it on the principle that you are too
incompetent to be trusted, but that such management fosters a
thoughtful, mature environment."
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jep
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response 30 of 78:
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Jun 2 13:46 UTC 2000 |
re #24: #9 includes the following:
The erase/scribble command in Backtalk/BBS shall continue to function
as it now does, except that the command shall be modified so that it is
only available for any given response for not more than one week after
the response is posted;
I think this part should read:
The erase/scribble command in Backtalk/BBS shall continue to function
as it now does;
I agree with all of the objections to the 1 week limitation on removing
your own postings.
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other
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response 31 of 78:
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Jun 3 04:39 UTC 2000 |
Hmm. I'm pleased to see that the motions I've made have stimulated some
thoughtful discussion which has given me enough additional perspective that
I can now comfortably withdraw the motions, so consider it done. I'm now
motionless.
I am still a little lost on where to go with this, but I feel like I'm helping
less by my efforts to come up with a solution than I might by simply asking
questions...
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remmers
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response 32 of 78:
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Jun 5 17:56 UTC 2000 |
Hm. I'm just back from a trip and catching up. You can sure
miss a lot when you're away for a few days. Multitudes of motions
can surface and sink like whales coming up for air. Guess they've
all sunk for the time being, except for a pending one in another
item. Less work for voteadm that way, so I suppose I'm happy.
I'm pleased from a philosophical standpoint as well -- aruba's #26
is right on: Trust people to behave responsibly and there's a
good chance that they will (that goes for users as well as staff);
don't make unnecessary rules; don't fix what isn't broken. Nine
years of stability on Grex attest to all that, I think.
Since this item is now motionless, maybe we can just talk about
some of the issues raised by the motions. The issue of ownership
of postings intrigues me. Now, I occasionally post material
on Grex that I certainly want to retain rights to -- creative
efforts, entered mainly in the Poetry and Writing conferences.
In fact, I often put explicit copyright notices on the stuff,
just to make it clear. (I'd have voted no on #0, which would
have denied me the right to do that.)
On the other hand, most of my responses here are not of that
kind at all, but rather are contributions to a conversational
flow. I haven't gone to law school or anything. I'm not in a
position to evaluate what's been asserted about the implications
of copyright laws for electronic postings. But I'm a bit
uncomfortable with the notion that I "own" all the things that
I've posted here, every little part of every conversation that
happens to have my name attached to it. Frankly, I don't *want*
to own all those things. I view the vast majority of my postings
on Grex as contributions to a public record, and I believe that
there is a public interest in maintaing the integrity of such
records. I am uncomfortable with the notion that one has some
kind of basic right to edit history, even one's own contributions
to history.
If the copyright laws do indeed imply my personal ownership
of selected pieces of public records, then I think one needs
to question the wisdom of those laws. A balance needs to be
struck between private privilege and the public interest, and
this would not be the first time that the law has erred on the
side of the former (software patents, for example).
Even with the laws as they are, I suspect that there are details
of their application that have yet to be resolved, and may end
up being resolved by the courts. In the meantime, I hope we
don't rush into making fundamental changes in the way Grex
operates because of what we think certain laws might mean.
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other
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response 33 of 78:
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Jun 5 18:40 UTC 2000 |
You've just stated in wonderfully clear terms the things I've been struggling
with about this.
Trying to draw the line between entries which are part of a conversational
flow and those which constitute intellectual property (in practical terms)
is beyond my means. It just took me a while to realize that.
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void
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response 34 of 78:
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Jun 5 19:31 UTC 2000 |
grex isn't a public record. it's a public bbs, but the two are quite
different. if grex stored official birth, marriage, and death records,
or was primarily a news reporting entity, i could more easily agree with
remmers. since it is none of those things, grex cannot usurp ownership
of its users' text.
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jmsaul
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response 35 of 78:
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Jun 5 22:27 UTC 2000 |
Correct. And unlike remmers, I believe that I do own my words, that I own
all of them, and that my rights supersede the "right" of Grex to retain
everything I've ever written forever. I shouldn't have to invoke copyright
law in order to back that right up, but I will if need be. I don't intend
to go through and delete my comments wholesale, but I should have the right
to if I choose to do so, because they're mine.
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aruba
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response 36 of 78:
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Jun 6 02:45 UTC 2000 |
I agree with John.
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gelinas
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response 37 of 78:
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Jun 6 03:41 UTC 2000 |
Y'know, Senators and Representatives get to edit their comments as they
appear in the Congressional Record, adding or deleting as they see fit.
Why should members (and other uses) of grex not have the same privilege?
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i
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response 38 of 78:
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Jun 6 04:33 UTC 2000 |
Re #37: Remember the scandal of the House Bank? Most grexers don't want
to feel that we're the same kind of self-serving scum that Congressmen are.
I know less about the law than remmers, but i share his feeling that the
conference logs on grex are, in some senses, both public records and press
accounts of public events. If i write a speach, file for copyright, and
openly read the speach in the town square, then my copyright either must
or should have to give way (to some extent) to the freedom of the press.
I feel that the same applies here on grex.
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jmsaul
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response 39 of 78:
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Jun 6 04:50 UTC 2000 |
Sigh. Congresspersons have a responsibility to the public that mere members
of the public like us do not. This isn't a deliberative body, and none of
us represent anyone but ourselves. We're private citizens, not public
figures. The idea that it's somehow immoral for us to delete our own words
from a computer BBS because it's immoral for elected officials to tamper with
public records is frankly bizarre. It borders on the surreal.
You can feel that conference items are public records as strongly as you like,
but the rest of the public -- and the genuine legislators -- do not agree.
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md
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response 40 of 78:
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Jun 6 12:32 UTC 2000 |
I was astonished to learn that a Grex item of
mine got copied and pasted -- item number, item
header, my name, my "md" id and all -- into a
YAPP bbs in Austin TX. How public is that?
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jmsaul
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response 41 of 78:
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Jun 6 13:33 UTC 2000 |
I didn't know there were any YAPP BBSes in Austin TX.
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janc
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response 42 of 78:
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Jun 6 18:00 UTC 2000 |
Sounds like Paul Terry Walhaus's system, The Spring. Didn't know that
still existed. Yup, it does - http://www.spring.net
http://208.165.85.156/yapp-bin/public/read/movies/12 seems to be the
md item - a list of oscar nominees, which Paul Terry Walhus seems to
have imported from Grex.
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mwg
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response 43 of 78:
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Jun 6 18:19 UTC 2000 |
I repeat, pulling copyright in to inappropriate places is a bad idea. But
if you must, consider this: Anyone with the computer sophistication to
get into a system like Grex is aware that anything they place in
discussion sections *WILL* be seen all over the world. Posting here is
like feeding your words into an on-demand printing press, then deciding
after 5000 copies have been mailed all across the world, to filch the
printing plates out of the machine.
If people are going to insist on thumping copyright law on this, simply
create a policy that says that text entered by its' creator in public
areas of Grex is placed in the public domain, without asserting any rights
over copyright material that may be posted without the consent of the
owner. If someone wanted to expose something on Grex and still retain
any semblance of copyright, they could post a file pointer to a non-public
space, the pointer would become public domain, but the file could always
be removed later.
Several people will point out that they will leave if this is implemented.
The existance of the argument pretty much indicates that some of the
losers will leave no matter what the winning position is. Accept that
this issue will drive some people away and opt for the smooth running of
Grex.
The coffee is hot.
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aaron
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response 44 of 78:
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Jun 6 18:24 UTC 2000 |
It doens't matter if the text can be seen all over the world. You can
go buy a book that can be purchased all over the world -- it isn't
public domain. You can go to a movie that can be seen all over the world --
it isn't public domain. You can watch a TV show that can be viewed all
over the world -- it isn't public domain.
And in each of those cases, the copyright holder can at any time "filch"
the printing plates. Because it is the copyright holder's intellectual
property.
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jmsaul
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response 45 of 78:
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Jun 6 18:49 UTC 2000 |
Re #43: Ah, a restatement of the "only people who are computer experts
and never make mistakes should post on BBSes" argument. You
even included the obligatory silly analogy to other types of
communication that aren't really analogous. Perfect example
of the form.
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remmers
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response 46 of 78:
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Jun 6 23:05 UTC 2000 |
I'm not going to attempt to argue with lawyers about what the law
is, but I'll stand by what I said regarding what the law should
and shouldn't be.
Here's a hypothetical for y'all: Suppose a user posts some responses,
time passes, the user stops logging in, and the account lapses. The
user then no longer has the technical ability to exercise the
scribble command on the responses. Suppose the user later decides
he wants to delete the text and is able to furnish reasonable proof
that he is the person who posted it. Is the staff obligated to
scribble the text or enable the user to do so?
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void
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response 47 of 78:
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Jun 6 23:21 UTC 2000 |
absolutely.
grex is not a governing body and has no authority to establish law,
no matter what its users might think of various laws already extant.
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remmers
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response 48 of 78:
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Jun 6 23:34 UTC 2000 |
(Of course Grex can't establish law.)
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other
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response 49 of 78:
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Jun 6 23:36 UTC 2000 |
Ok, now suppose the same case as remmers presents in resp:46 except that
the user is *not* able to prove their identity, but argues vehemently the
case that the posted text is theirs and is to be removed. Have they a
legal leg to stand on should they pursue legal remedy? Is Grex staff in
any way obligated to respond to the demands presented sans proof of
identity?
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