Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl
From: fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP Maps Used For Commerce
Summary: wrong
Message-ID: <198@ssc.UUCP>
Date: 23 Sep 89 18:19:47 GMT
References: <10017@ucsd.Edu> <3833@itivax.iti.org> <328@sci34hub.UUCP>
Organization: SSC, Inc., Seattle, WA
Lines: 70

In article <328@sci34hub.UUCP>, gary@sci34hub.UUCP (Gary Heston) writes:
> In article <1989Sep21.220406.14140@algor2.algorists.com>, jeffrey@algor2.algorists.com (Jeffrey Kegler) writes:
> > It is not clear to me that mailing lists can be copyrighted.

> I believe this is an incorrect assumption. Call TIDS (Technical Information
> Distribution Service), or any magazine (Byte, for example) who sells their 
> subscriber list and ask if their mailing list and it's subsets are
> copyrighted. I think their reply will be a most emphatic YES! Otherwise,
> nothing could prevent someone from buying a mailing list and then reselling
> it in competition with the originator.

Not true.  We have "bought" quite a few mailing lists in the last 5
years.  There is no claim of copyright but you contract with the
supplier of the list.  The contract stipulates that you have not
purchased the list but rather the use of the list for a single mailing.
Some organizations (/usr/group I think) will also require that you
send them a copy of what you will be mailing so they can decide if
they like it before they will sell you use of their list.

It the owner of the list feels you might rip them off they may require
that the mailing list be sent directly to a company that just does
mailings rather than to you.  This, by the way, is usually a pain as
we like to do our own mailing incrementally so we don't get a huge
bubble in orders.

We have also been approached by others for the use of our mailing list.
(We sell UNIX Pocket References and a lot of our business is mail-order.)
As a matter of policy we have never sold it because we feel that our
customers deserve some say in what they get (plus it saves trees :-). )

On the other hand, some of the names on our list have come from Usenet.
We don't automatically extract map information but when someone
in the office sees a person they feel might be interested in our products,
they will add them to a flyer mailing list.  If we don't hear from
that person in a few months, their name is automtically purged.

The real problem is where to draw the line.  I personally have no
problem with someone sending me a "new product announcement" that
has something to do with UNIX.  I buy stuff like that.  On the other
hand I have no interest in my Usenet address being used to offer me
"a great deal on a new VISA card" or "better toilet paper".

Maybe we could add a field to the map information about what
kinds of junk mail we would accept.  Options might be:
    [] UNIX new product announcements
    [] some other operating system stuff
    [] computer stuff
    [] useless junk mail


> 
> > I suspect the UUCP maps are fair game for abuse, legally, much as I
> > regret that.
> 
> There's alwasy flame wars...... Anybody grepping the maps for a mailing 
> list is obviously connected to the net somehow. Dropping their postage-
> prepaid cards and envelopes in the mail without filling them in is also
> a simple means of expressing displeasure, since it costs them money...
>  
> > jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
> 
> -- 
>     Gary Heston     { uunet!gary@sci34hub  }    System Mismanager
>    SCI Technology, Inc.  OEM Products Department  (i.e., computers)
>       Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.


-- 
Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155  (206)FOR-UNIX
    amc-gw!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl