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From: gm@trsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: How to legally read Joe Bob
Message-ID: <53700036@trsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Oct-84 20:19:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: trsvax.53700036
Posted: Thu Oct 18 20:19:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Oct-84 01:25:52 EDT
Lines: 64
Nf-ID: #N:trsvax:53700036:000:3187
Nf-From: trsvax!gm    Oct 18 19:19:00 1984

> You know, there IS a legal way to handle this.  Contact the syndicate with
> distribution rights for the column and see how much they'd charge for the
> rights to post it on USENET.
> ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado			(301) 496-5688

Well, I did just that. Since I'm not too far from the Dallas Times Herald, I
called them up. A fellow there informed me that all of the syndication
rights for Joe Bob were handled by the LA Times Syndicate. I called them
up (800-528-4637) and talked to one of their salesmen. I then tried to explain
to him what USENET and ARPANET were. A partial transcript of the session 
follows:

Me:   "(from the standard introduction) USENET is a highly decentralized
        group of computers consisting of approx. 1200 sites world-wide."
Him:  "Excuse me, did you say world-wide?"
      "Yes, there are sites in Australia, the Far East, Canada, and Europe.
        But the biggest bulk is here in the US."
      "So how many people read this thing?"
      "Nobody really knows for sure."
      "Who is in charge?"
      "Nobody."
      "Is there any kind of brochure or pamplet discribing this?"
      "Nope."
      [and so on...]

He went on to say that this would be entirely new, because the LA Times
only deals with printed media. He would have to discuss this with his
boss, the Dallas Times Herald, and Joe Bob before anything could be done.
He called me back today and said that yes, this could be done, under a
few restrictions. Namely: 

   When the newspapers buy a feature, they get exclusive rights to have
   that in that area. For example, the Dallas Morning News cannot purchase
   Joe Bob, because the Times has the rights for Dallas/Ft. Worth. So, if
   a newspaper starts complaining that USENET is unfairly distributing
   Joe Bob, they will have to stop us.

   Joe Bob must *not* appear in any other form than electronic.
   This means that someone cannot download Joe Bob for their campus newspaper.

There would be a few advantages. The biggest being that we could legally
read Joe Bob. We could probably also arrange it to be downloaded from
the AP or UPI newswires, to save someone from having to type it all in.

But then the real problem. They want "only" $100 a week for the rights to
distribute Joe Bob (with a $1200 advanced payment). I guess this could be
done, after all, there are around 1200 sites, if each site contributes a
dollar...   But who would want to send their dollars off to an unknown
person, who could very easily pocket the money. Besides, Joe Bob
is good, but not *that* good. 

After talking with him a while, I found out that they base the rates on 
the number of people who will read it. For example, a small town newspaper
may only pay $10 a week for Joe Bob, whereas the Houston Post would pay
$50. That seems a bit unfair. After all, even by generous estimates,
there is no more than 300,000 people who are on the net, contrasted to the
Houston Post with a readership of around a million. What do y'all think about
it?

George Moore					  Tandy System Software
uucp: {laidbak, sco, microsoft, sneaky, allegra!convex!ctvax}!trsvax!gm
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