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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 337
Netizens-Digest Tuesday, August 31 1999 Volume 01 : Number 337
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Court OKs some domains with trademarked names
[netz] An 'enemy of the Net' strikes back (Burma)
[netz] Re: The Internet way
[netz] Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (fwd)
[netz] Re: Domain Names (fwd)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:06:32 +0000
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Court OKs some domains with trademarked names
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,0-40897,00.html
Court OKs some domains with trademarked names
By Dan Goodin
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 24, 1999, 5:40 p.m. PT
Internet addresses that include trademarked names do not
necessarily constitute a violation, according to a ruling by a federal
appeals court.
The decision, handed down yesterday by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit, means that Mailbank, a small email provider
that allows customers to easily customize their email addresses,
may hold onto the names "avery.net" and "dennison.net."
Office supply company Avery Dennison had sought to take
possession of the addresses, arguing that they "diluted" its
registered trademarks.
A three-judge appeals panel unanimously ruled that Avery had no
right to take control of the domain names because the company's
trademarks did not meet the requirements of the Federal
Trademark Dilution Act, under which the suit was brought. The
1995 statute protects "famous" or "strong" marks--for example,
Disney or Toyota--from being diluted though unauthorized use.
The statute has been invoked repeatedly in disputes over domain
names, especially against so-called cybersquatters, who register
well-known trademarks as domain names and then sell them back
to the holder at an inflated price.
[...]
===
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 01:21:19
From: John Walker <jwalker@networx.on.ca>
Subject: [netz] An 'enemy of the Net' strikes back (Burma)
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Is China preparing a cyber attack to coincide with the expected
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- ------------
An 'enemy of the Net' strikes back (Burma)
http://www.ireland.com/scripts/technology/showall.cfm?id=565
Sandy Barron on the cyber censorship affecting Burma's new cybercafe
which has no Internet access and regular power cuts
As though to prove wrong a report that recently described Burma as
one of the top 20 "enemies of the Internet", the military-run
southeast-Asian country has permitted a cybercafe to begin operating
in the capital city Rangoon - but without Internet access.
The cybercafe at Innwa Bookstore, possibly the world's only Internet
cafe with no Net access, was reported to be the first of its kind in
Burma by MyaBuzz, a Thailand-based business newsletter.
Instead of accessing the Net, customers at the cybercafe on Sule
Pagoda Road may borrow CDRoms that have passed the military junta's
stringent censorship. Customers may also use the multimedia
computers for word-processing or other tasks - during periods of the
day that are free of Rangoon's regular electricity black-outs. They
are also invited to register for the unavailable Internet access,
reports MyaBuzz.
In a recent report, the journalists' organisation Reporters Sans
Frontières (RSF) described Burma (also known as Myanmar) as one of
20 countries that could be described as "real enemies" of the
Internet because they "control access totally or partially, have
censored websites or taken action against users". A further 25
countries restrict access to a lesser degree.
In Burma, it is illegal to own a fax machine or a modem without a
licence, and breaking the law carries a jail sentence of up to 15
years. Leo Nichols, a Burmese businessman, honorary consul for
Norway, and a friend of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, died in prison some years ago while serving a three-year
sentence for possession of a fax machine.
RSF says that in Burma, Internet censorship "is total, due to a
state monopoly on access". Television, radio, videos, CDs, newspapers
and books are also subject to blanket state censorship and thousands
of Burmese rely on BBC broadcasts for news about the country.
Other countries in the top 20 Internet "enemies" list include
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in central Asia
and the Caucasus. In the Middle East and Africa, RSF highlights Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Tunisia, along with Sierra
Leone and Sudan. Also on the RSF list are Cuba, Vietnam, China and
North Korea.
"On the pretext of protecting the public from `subversive ideas' or
defending `national security and unity', some governments totally
prevent their citizens from gaining access to the Internet," says
RSF. "Others control a single Internet Services Provider (ISP) or
even several, installing filters blocking access to websites regarded
as unsuitable and sometimes forcing users to officially register with
the authorities."
Authoritarian regimes may regard the Internet as a "twoedged sword"
says RSF, because while the Net provides free access to
international sources of information and thwarts some authorities'
control of information, it also promotes economic growth through
online transactions and the sharing of information. "The economic
argument seems to be winning the day in countries such as Malaysia
and Singapore, where controlling `dangerous' sites is proving
difficult for the authorities," says RSF.
Although Burma restricts Internet access to a tiny minority of
organisations and individuals close to the regime, and monitors
messages closely, the military junta, known as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) is an enthusiastic sender of information
and propaganda to international Burma discussion areas on the Net.
The junta also operates a home page at www.myanmar.com, which was
recently featured on the site of the giant international online
service America On-Line, prompting fierce protests earlier this
month from the Free Burma Coalition (www.freeburmacoalition.org), a
pro-democracy group based in the US. Myanmar.com contains mainly
information for tourists, but the cybercafe at Innwa Books does not
feature on its list of attractions.
- ----------------
Also in this issue:
- - An 'enemy of the Net' strikes back (Burma)
Sandy Barron on the cyber censorship affecting Burma's new cybercafe
which has no Internet access and regular power cuts
- - Can copyright survive online? (Ireland)
Barrister Denis Kelleher outlines the problems for copyright holders
- - Real to Support Be Operating System (US)
Be Inc., developer of BeOS, an operating system designed for digital
media applications will bring RealNetworks RealPlayer G2 to BeOS
users.
- - East Timorese Domain Host Denounces Cyberwar (Asia)
The ISP that hosts East Timor's domain (.tp) has denounced the call
for a cyberwar against Indonesia, should the Indonesian government
fail to recognize the tiny South East Asian territory's calls for
independence.
- - Parents Only A Mouse Click From Classroom (US)
Students who relish the high-tech wizardry that brought them the
virtual realities of video games may soon find mom and dad using
similar technological advances to virtually peek over their shoulder
in fourth-period math class.
- - Some Net surfers choke on 'cookies' (US)
Critics say files can track user's online route
- - ICANN seeking $2 million in loans (US)
WASHINGTON -- Saddled with more than $800,000 in debt, the nonprofit
organization set up by the U.S. government to infuse competition
into the business of registering Internet addresses received $650,000
in loans from two high-tech companies in recent days and says it
needs $1 million more to pay debts and to operate through November.
- - Programs Make Surfing More Communal (US)
Despite the millions of people around the world surfing the Web,
traveling through cyberspace can feel at times like walking through a
dense jungle full of flora and fauna, but no people.
- - France Tel Offers New Rate To Boost Internet Use (Europe)
BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - France Telecom Monday gave fresh
details of its plans to boost Internet use, including a new 28
centime per minute flat rate for subscribers which it hopes will spur
development of the network in France.
- - Net gambling firm unscathed by police raids (Canada)
VANCOUVER--Online gambling and pornography company Starnet
Communications continued trading shares and operating its business
after police raids of its offices Friday.
- - Adventures in Cyberspanish (US)
Ana Velez's home is like many households in the information age.
Every day, the Clifton woman goes on line to catch up on news and
communicate with family, and her son uses the Internet to conduct
business.
- - New Lists and Journals
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- -------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:37:08 +0000
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Re: The Internet way
Greg wrote,
> If you can find ways to get people who are in deep dispute to
> reconcile differences and work for a common good, you will have
> solved a fundamental human problem, not just an Internet problem.
That's the problem Ive been working on, but the solution, I find, is to
not consider that 'solving the problem' is an individual effort. Rather,
*one can only expose the need to recognize that the fundamental
problem is that *everyone has part of the answer, only no one
believes it (either of themselves or of the others). Once all the
parties start working together to discover the grounds for their
mutual distrust, then from there, finding a solution to the particular
*symptomatic 'problem' that revealed such 'deep differences' is
almost always easy.
The most difficult step in this solution, I might add, is getting
people to look away for the barest moment from the symptom
(which of course they insist on calling the REAL problem) to see
that one is actually saying something to them, just as if one
already is tackling the real problem (which I called 'fundamental' but
is really the only one).
That is, most folks are already so sure that only they understand
the 'issues' that they cant see that that surety gets in the way of
their getting togerther with anyone else, despite the fact staring
them in the face that they can in no conceivable way achieve their
putative solution by themselves.
I will be offline for a month; see you all when I get back ;-)
kerry
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 13:28:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest) (fwd)
- ------- start of forwarded message -------
Date: 27 Aug 1999 18:01:06 GMT
From: kim@aol.com (Kim Brennan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Domain Names (was Re: Son of 'Name That Domain' Contest)
Message-ID: <telecom19.348.8@telecom-digest.org>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Sender: editor@telecom-digest.org
Approved: [comp.dcom.telecom/8da0804481557366dd67089e1a183990]
X-URL: http://telecom-digest.org/
X-Submissions-To: editor@telecom-digest.org
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 19, Issue 348, Message 8 of 13
Lines: 111
Our moderator opines:
> thanks in large part to the Internet Society and their devotees who claim to
> speak for all netizens and who have their arms-wide-open in a welcome
> to big business everywhere -- has been largely hijacked from its real
> owners, and now anything is possible I guess.
How you define the "real owners" of the Internet? The users? The
companies maintaining the backbone? The customers of the backbone
maintainers, who pay for connectivity to the backbone? The designers
of ARPAnet? Or the old timers who first were on the internet?
While I agree it is a terrible thing to see folks pony up their $70
for a domain name, only to lose it because some company happens to
have a similar company name, I am not so sure I agree with your
opinion that the internet has been hijacked by commercial
companies. Overwhemed, surely. But it is a two edged sword. On the one
hand you have the advertising, spamming, etc. that these commercial
companies bring, on the other paw, the access provided is stretching
out to more and more folks, something I seriously doubt would have
happened without the commercial interests, or at least not in anything
like the same timeframe.
You can argue that a lot of the companies impinging on the net aren't
ISP's, but ultimately that is a chicken/egg comparison. As more folks
have access, more companies want to be accessible to these folks. This
in turn leads to advertising, which helps fund ISP's to provide yet
more access.
To draw another symbolism into this ... I think we are experiencing
the "Urban blighting" of the internet. As more and more folks (and
companies) get on the internet, more and more garbage (graffiti,
litter, etc.) is piling up. Eventually people will look for ways to
hide the garbage. There is no suburb to move to on the internet,
unless you consider proprietary services like AOL's. So better controls
will be developed or (en)forced upon the users to limit/restrict what
folks can/do see.
Kim Brennan (kim@aol.com)
Duo 2300c, PB 2400, VW Fox Wagon GL, Corrado SLC, Vanagon GL Syncro
http://members.aol.com/kim
Duo Info Page: http://members.aol.com/kim/computer/duo
?'s should include "Duo" in subject, else they'll be deleted unread.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I note you say 'controls will be
enforced on the users' rather than controls being enforced on the
companies which are swarming all over the place. How nice. Yes, by
all means, let's keep the users in their place and not offend our
new residents; why who knows, they may take the hint and go back to
their storefronts and stay off the net. I welcome anyone on this net
as long as they are willing to follow the existing rules and trad-
itions which have long been in place here.
As to who 'owns the internet' I suggest it is 'owned' by the persons
and institutions who support its traditional role over the first
couple decades of its existence; a medium for the exchange of ideas
and knowledge; a way for people to communicate freely without the
restrictions and sanitizing imposed on their ideas and speech so
common in the mainstream media. Some have supported that role by
financing the 'backbone'; others have supported it by making their
computers available for free or at cost to the public who wish to
use them. Still others have supported it with their creativity and
knowledge shared freely with everyone.
Geocities has supported the net by tossing popup ads in the face of
everyone who visits them. Many companies have supported the net by
snooping on everyone who comes to visit them. Quite a few newcomers
have supported the net by conducting one scam after another, or
flooding us with unwanted email. All very net-like and traditional,
wouldn't you say? Well, you probably would say so if you had only
been around here for the last five years or so, but believe me,
that is *not* what the net is about, or how it was intended.
Regards whether or not corporate support is needed and whether or
not the net could survive without it, all I can say is are people
around here really that hard-up financially? I certainly support
the growth of the *user-base* on the internet. I certainly support
the improvements in connectivity we have seen in the past few years.
By the way, I also certainly support sending every spare nickle we
have right now to the Turkish Red Crescent organization or other
relief agency of our choice, but in any event I do not intend to
go out and sell my body tonight to raise the money, however
admirable the goal. And that is what it has come to: a lot of the
commercial entities on the net in recent years think they have
discovered a house of prostitution. All the print media certainly
tells them it is so; look at all those netizens you can screw with.
'The rules have changed: get paid for viewing ads on the net' as
alladvantage.com would say. Well hey, the rules always were we did
not get ads tossed in our face here, but we are now to believe the
ads were always around -- to netizens of less than five years or
so here, that would be correct -- and we get fifty cents if we
are willing to watch for an hour what we used to not have to deal
with at all. Somehow I think the net would survive and continue to
grow as a community without the commercial sites. There are certain
people on the net that I would honestly say I have no love lost for;
long ago fights, or whatever. I still would not sell them out for two
cents per click-through. A web site called 'Topica' has offered me
five hundred dollars for my mailing list, can you believe that? I
would get about 25 cents for each of you guys. I suppose I could buy a
new computer and improve my network connectivity. We all want the net
to grow and prosper, right? In actual practice, when my rent comes
due every Thursday and its two weeks before the next ITU grant
installment arrives and the post office box has produced only very
slim pickings for several weeks, it *is* tempting. But no thanks,
the net means a little more to me than that, and I wish it did to
you as well. PAT]
- ------- end of forwarded message -------
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 14:36:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: Domain Names (fwd)
- ------- start of forwarded message -------
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 00:54:46 -0600
From: Joey Lindstrom <Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Domain Names
Reply-To: Joey Lindstrom <Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU>
Message-ID: <telecom19.351.7@telecom-digest.org>
Organization: TELECOM Digest
Sender: editor@telecom-digest.org
Approved: [comp.dcom.telecom/760f67aadd5c9067983cfdb9e96d02ad]
X-URL: http://telecom-digest.org/
X-Submissions-To: editor@telecom-digest.org
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 19, Issue 351, Message 7 of 8
Lines: 239
Xref: news3.best.com comp.dcom.telecom:23606
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:30:33 -0400 (EDT), TELECOM Digest Editor noted
in response:
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I note you say 'controls will be
> enforced on the users' rather than controls being enforced on the
> companies which are swarming all over the place. How nice. Yes, by
> all means, let's keep the users in their place and not offend our
> new residents; why who knows, they may take the hint and go back to
> their storefronts and stay off the net. I welcome anyone on this net
> as long as they are willing to follow the existing rules and trad-
> itions which have long been in place here.
> As to who 'owns the internet' I suggest it is 'owned' by the persons
> and institutions who support its traditional role over the first
> couple decades of its existence; a medium for the exchange of ideas
> and knowledge; a way for people to communicate freely without the
> restrictions and sanitizing imposed on their ideas and speech so
> common in the mainstream media. Some have supported that role by
> financing the 'backbone'; others have supported it by making their
> computers available for free or at cost to the public who wish to
> use them. Still others have supported it with their creativity and
> knowledge shared freely with everyone.
In short, anyone who wasn't here in the 80's, when the internet was a
cool and groovy place, should be made to take a back seat and allow
"the old timers" to continue to set the rules, with no input from us
at all.
Well, thank you very much, Pat.
Who "owns" the internet? A lot of people "own" the internet, or at
least small pieces of it. I "own" some of it: I've got four servers
hooked up to an ADSL line and have about a dozen websites, plus email,
RealAudio, etc. In this respect, I "own" more internet than you do.
Yet you would have me sit back and allow you to set the rules for me?
No thanks -- I get a vote too.
Let's get something straight here. The internet was originally built
by the US Department of Defense and all the other organizations that
decided to link in, ie: mostly educational institutions, military
bases, etc. The pricetag was enormous. It was their (collective)
decisions to basically leave things free and open that created the
"traditions" that you've mentioned. The users of the 'net at that time
didn't have a big convention and decide how things would work - they
just evolved haphazardly. Nobody climbed a mountain and returned with
two stone tablets labelled "The Ten Internet Commandments".
I can understand why people pine (no pun intended) for the "good old
days". But those days are gone. As Denis Leary would say, "Life
sucks, get a f***ing helmet." Deal with it and focus on doing whatever
you can to make your corner of the internet a good place. And, indeed,
you do an admirable job there.
I guess what I'm venting about here, Pat, is the near-constant
corporate bashing that goes on here. Yes, there are some companies on
the 'net who are not nice netizens -- I'd rank Geocities at the top of
this list. But the whole "American spirit" is to vote with your wallet
-- or in this case, with your mouse. Don't like Geocities sites? Don't
visit 'em or use a pop-up killer. Case closed, move on.
Pat, as much as it may gall you and the other old-timers here, these
companies have every right to do what they're doing, and every right to
carve out their little niche on the 'net. If we don't like what
they're doing, nobody's forcing us to visit their sites. I hear lots
of bitching about having to register to read articles on some New York
newspaper's website. Aw, shucks. I guess we should campaign for a new
law to force these companies to provide us with the latest news free of
charge without registration. I mean, after all, it's our right -- we
were here first, after all, and they're just a bad ol' corporation and
a Johnny-come-lately to boot.
It costs money to maintain such a website. BIG money. They've gotta
pay reporters to go out and get stories, they've gotta pay wire
services for copy that they don't generate themselves, they've gotta
pay for bandwidth, servers, and someone to mash it all into the website
on a daily basis. Somebody pays the bill, and unlike the "good ol'
days", that somebody isn't an educational institute with a massive
budget allocated for expensive toys. They expect to earn a profit, and
rightly so.
Personally, I'm not too worried about having to register to use their
website. But on the other hand, I find it easier to just surf on over
to www.cnn.com or one of the other great free news sites on the
internet. CNN gives me one banner ad at the top of each page, and I
don't have a problem with that at all. It's inobtrusive, and
occasionally one will interest me to the point where I'll actually
click-thru the damned thing. And that's how CNN makes their money, and
thus can continue bringing me their excellent free service. Sometimes
I'll click-thru an ad not because I'm interested in the advertised
product, but because I haven't clicked-thru for a few days and figure I
owe them the 12 cents or so they'll collect. One good turn deserves
another, after all.
The "good old days" of the internet were a something-for-nothing
proposition for a great many of the netizens involved. In turn, they'd
use the resources they had at their disposal and, in turn, would build
something useful with them (ie: the TELECOM Digest). But somebody had
to funnel those resources into the 'net in the first place.
Those days are gone, gone, and gone. Dang it all. We can moan and
bitch, or we can adjust and move on.
> Geocities has supported the net by tossing popup ads in the face of
> everyone who visits them. Many companies have supported the net by
> snooping on everyone who comes to visit them. Quite a few newcomers
> have supported the net by conducting one scam after another, or
> flooding us with unwanted email. All very net-like and traditional,
> wouldn't you say? Well, you probably would say so if you had only
> been around here for the last five years or so, but believe me,
> that is *not* what the net is about, or how it was intended.
What was "intended" and what "is" are two different things. Tough
cookies (again, no pun intended). Yes indeed, there are a bunch of
rotten bastards on the 'net these days. Kinda like in real life, no?
The nirvana days are gone, get used to it and find creative ways to
deal with it. The clock isn't gonna roll back (well, 'cept for those
poor buggers with non-Y2K compliant machines, that is ...)
> Regards whether or not corporate support is needed and whether or
> not the net could survive without it, all I can say is are people
> around here really that hard-up financially? I certainly support
> the growth of the *user-base* on the internet. I certainly support
> the improvements in connectivity we have seen in the past few years.
And who should pay for this? Would you prefer that the users pay
$100/month for a 28.8K dial-up account? Because without the big
companies, that's exactly what we'd be facing.
> cents per click-through. A web site called 'Topica' has offered me
> five hundred dollars for my mailing list, can you believe that? I
> would get about 25 cents for each of you guys. I suppose I could buy a
> new computer and improve my network connectivity. We all want the net
> to grow and prosper, right? In actual practice, when my rent comes
> due every Thursday and its two weeks before the next ITU grant
> installment arrives and the post office box has produced only very
> slim pickings for several weeks, it *is* tempting. But no thanks,
> the net means a little more to me than that, and I wish it did to
> you as well. PAT]
Pat, if "Topica" is willing to pay you 25 cents for my email address,
you HAVE MY EXPRESS PERMISSION to sell it to them. It's not much, but
I'm willing to "pay" for my TELECOM Digest (at least in a small, small
way) by having to deal with a bit more spam. I wonder how many others
here would be similarly willing to offer up their email address for
this? Maybe Pat could find several buyers, each of whom would pass
along 25 cents for our email addresses. If he was successful, he
wouldn't need sponsorship anymore - the TELECOM Digest would be a
self-financing operation.
The net means a lot to me, too, Pat, and I'm not trying to denigrate
you or your efforts or your vision of what the net should be. But I
live in 1999 and have to deal with things as they are, not how they
used to be. Sure, it'd be nice to go back to those old days, but it
ain't gonna happen. My favourite author, Robert Heinlein, said it
best: "TANSTAAFL", or "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".
Maybe you should consider moving away from voluntary donations, and
asking all Digest subscribers to (perhaps after a free two-week trial
to see if they like it or not) toss in a MANDATORY subscription fee of,
say, $5/year. IIRC (and my memory's fuzzy here), you mentioned you had
a subscriber base of about 4000 - that translates to $20,000/year, and
I for one would pay that $5.
But I also would have *NO* problem whatsoever with you putting a
CNN-style banner ad on the website, and/or a text ad at the bottom (or
top) of each Digest, or whatever it takes to help pay the bills. If
you went too far, and pulled a Geocities on us, I'd likely stop
subscribing - so it's a precarious balance. But I think just about
everyone here knows that the Digest puts a financial burden on you, and
would not only be ok with you going for a bit of advertising revenue,
but would in fact encourage you to do so if you put the question to
them.
From the messy desktop of Joey Lindstrom
Email: Joey@GaryNumanFan.NU or joey@lindstrom.com
Phone: +1 403 313-JOEY
FAX: +1 413 643-0354 (yes, 413 not 403)
Visit The NuServer! http://www.GaryNumanFan.NU
Visit The Webb! http://webb.GaryNumanFan.NU
"Bend the rules, but don't break them."
--Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Babylon 5
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never said you had to be here in the
1980's. I said you are welcome (let me repeat myself) *if you support
the traditional role of the net as it was used during all those years*.
Obviously, not everyone could be around in the 1980's; I daresay many
of the people who have become millionaires on the net at the expense
of the rest of us probably were not even born by then (smiling, but
with teeth bared as I smile). Whenever you were born, hatched, dropped
out of a tree or whatever is unimportant. How many computers and
peripherals you own is unimportant. What you choose to do with them is
unimportant. When you choose to come into an *existing community* how
you choose to conduct yourself *is very important*. When in Rome, do
as the Romans do, and all that.
I never said you do not get any say-so or had to take a back seat. I
never claimed the rules of the net were part of the Ten Commandments
or any similiar thing. What I think I said was in essence that the
internet was around for many years; there were lots of people here --
many of whom unfortunatly have fled in disgust in recent years -- and
that we all had various mutual agreements as to how things would be
done. We had a delightful little community, or in your words, a 'cool
and groovy place' and it all worked out just fine. When newcomers
arrived, they were given copies of FAQ's dealing with 'netiquette' and
other issues. We said to them 'this is what we are doing here, and
how we do it. Would you like to be part of our community?' One of the
important, cardinal rules was that we shared without question or
hesitation our knowledge in the areas in which we were specialists.
We never wrote down our rules and we never had lawyers to enforce them
because it was thought unnecessary. I can now look back in hindsight
of course and say look at the mess that has become of things as a
result. To this day I blame Timothy Berners-Lee for not slapping a
very strong, very heavy-handed copyright on all his work involving the
web, effectively making the misuse we have now impossible. But of
course he did not do that because the web was *his* contribution to
our community. Poor innocent Tim ... he just puts it in the public
domain, like all of us here used to do. Imagine any of the commercial
sites that have infested the net in recent years putting any of their
stuff in the public domain. Far from it ... instead, their attitude
has been to hell with your netiquette, to hell with your traditions,
to hell with your plans, to hell with your goals, to hell with your
sharing amongst yourselves; we are here now and we are taking over
and you will damned well do as you are told or else leave. If we
have to, our lawyers will force you to comply. This is now ours, it
is not yours any longer. Your rules have all been revoked, under the
assumption we choose to respect the legitimacy of any of them to
start with. Find me a single one of their websites which does not
post their set of rules, their prohibition against copying any of
their material, all their 'Ten Commandments' enforced by thier legal
beagles.
>"I would have no problem with you putting a banner ad on pages or
> selling my name" ...
Maybe you wouldn't, but I surely would. PAT]
- ------- end of forwarded message -------
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End of Netizens-Digest V1 #337
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