Feminists to your flamethrowers!

[Dale L. Larson]

[Ducking and hoping that everyone uninterested in cyber law will hit 'n' 
now...]

> I'd like to think that Jules was either demonstrating how a person 
> who really is concerned might retain their rights to a public message 

Our author Mary Anne Mohanraj has similar notices in all the stories she's
posted to the net over the years.  Here we're talking about long works
representing lots of work and with real commercial value. Fair use isn't
remotely an issue for quoting any of these stories in their entirety.

Still, she's had various problems with people putting her stories (sometimes
every story she's ever posted) onto commercial CD-ROMs and/or commercial
websites, etc., without contacting or compensating her, sometimes even
stripping out her copyright notice.  She and other online authors with
similar problems have discussed the issue with each other and with various
attorneys (and a federal judge who's hearing some similar Internet cases).
Among other things, it is clear that both: 1) it would be very expensive to
sue over, and 2) it isn't a clearly winable case.  Some legal eagles (turkeys
if you prefer) think that even such a notice may not be enforcable -- that it
is basically legal to make ANY use of material posted to a discussion group
because it has essentially (if not completely) been relinquished to the
public domain.  That's an extremist point of view, and perhaps most of us
would hope and prefer the law to be otherwise.  But note Andrew's response --
what is he to do with such notices?  What if he decides to put together a
CD-ROM of his archive, is that different? 
  
The courts haven't decided, and it will likely take years before the law is
at all clear about this point.  A notice can't hurt, but it might not help,
either.