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From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,misc.legal,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Free software and Usenet articles on CompuServe
Message-ID: <2363@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Sat, 4-Jul-87 23:09:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2363
Posted: Sat Jul  4 23:09:58 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 03:57:29 EDT
References: <1511@botter.cs.vu.nl> <323@rabbit1.UUCP> <13150@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 37
Xref: mnetor comp.os.minix:1142 misc.legal:2010 comp.emacs:1322

ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) wrote:
> Of course, there are USENET messages in the Data Libraries in
> groups such as the BPFORUM of all places.

I don't know what Data Libraries or BPFORUMs are but if they are on
Compuserve, I wonder if they include any of the Usenet articles which
contained my copyrights, specifically disallowing retransmission of my
articles unless the retransmission was without restrictions.  This
technique successfully clarified the Stargate redistribution policy.
I'd like to see if Compuserve is violating my copyrights, since they
specifically do not allow their customers to redistribute material
obtained from Compuserve [even though everyone does it all the time].

Stargate is filtering out any article containing the string "copyright"
(presumably in upper or lower case); probably Compuserve can't afford
to do this, since most of the sources they get are copyright, and in
fact many of the encoded binaries they get are copyright and this
test won't detect it.  They'll have to stop stealing material, or change
the policy, or be sued.  I can afford it and I don't like thieves.
(Richard Stallman calls them "software hoarders", but Compuserve is
worse because they don't even write any of the stuff they hoard.
They take it from public sources and try to make it private.)

Can someone with a Compuserve account check for this?  If they
have a grep equivalent, just grep for "opyright" in some of the 
places where Usenet articles are appearing.

Also, while browsing on Compuserve, if anyone happens to notice a
copyrighted article (mine or somebody else's) that doesn't let you
restrict redistribution, can you forward me a copy of it?

Hmm, has any of the GNU software appeared on Compuserve?  Distributing
it to people with conditions imposed may be a violation of the Free Software
Foundation's copyright.
-- 
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