Lineland/Intellectual Property

[Joe Varo]

On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Kim L. Serkes wrote:

> How's this one? Suppose you accumulate change in your pocket indending
> to give it away to beggars. Suppose that some desperate soul robs you
> and takes all your spare change. You'd intended to give the change away,
> it meant nothing to you.  You might not bother having the miserable
> wretch arrested and prosecuted, but you've still been robbed.  See? 

Kim,

I'm not sure that this analogy really holds much water.  The way I
personally see it, posting to a mailing list or a newsgroup is more
analogous to taking all of your spare change and tossing it on the
sidewalk for everyone and anyone to pick up.  Now if it was personal email
which was intercepted by some unscrupulous sysop or hacker, then the
robbery analogy might apply.

When you send email to pynchon-l at waste.org you have no way of knowing who
is going to see it and therefore isn't really intended for some select
group of people, since people come and go all the time.

> If I'm writing for profit (or for scholarship,) then I understand that my
> words will be used in certain ways. I understand that someone may make fair
> use of them, and accept that because such use will enhance my reputation
> (or visibility anyway.)
> [...]

I readily grant you this point, but I don't think that it supercedes what
is going on when you post a mailing list.  And besides, isn't it at least
*theoretically* possible that Siegel's book could enhance someone's
visibility?  Doubtful...but under other circumstances, I could see some
'net personality becoming moderately famous due to a book such as this.

Joe