Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ncc!alberta!access!edm!news
From: news@edm.UUCP (news software)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Not Basing Usenet Behavior on Property Rights (Re: Fascism Lives ...)
Message-ID: <3103@edm.UUCP>
Date: 9 May 88 05:25:31 GMT
References: 
Distribution: na
Organization: Unexsys Systems, Edmonton,AB.
Lines: 35

From article , by webber@constance.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber):
> In article <70@dcs.UUCP>, wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
>>...
>> Further, while there may be freedom of speech, USENET also involves the
>> privilege of using other people's material resources for free, and anytime
>> you use somebody elses resources in the exercise of your rights, the owner
> 
> While you are correct that Usenet involves the use of property and hence
> its customs legally are doubtless controlled by property rights, this is
> not a good base for grounding Usenet behavior.  The reason is quite simply
> that historically (and even today) a very large number of Usenet news 
> operations are run in complete ignorance of the property owners.  I.e.,
> the people that actually pay the bills are quite often completely unaware
Well, either things are a LOT different in your area of this continent, or 
Edmonton is a WEIRD city (Ok. so we've got a man made waterfall and WEM, 
but still...:-)

Just about everybody I know of in Edmonton who has a usenet feed has it 
legitimately (with the knowledge, and often the WISHES of the system 
owner). To be more precise, although the companies/organizations don't
usually budget for a standalone USENET machine, the existence of the
link tends to be open knowledge at the very least.
  (I mean: I'm not going to go to premier Getty just to get an OK for
putting news on one of the Alberta Hospital machines, but I have also
been paid (as an external consultant) for my efforts in getting usenet
running on a machine.)

Just because there isn't a item labeled 'USENET' in provincial/state
/national budgets doesn't mean that it isn't officially accounted for
at some level.
-- 
-------------
 Stephen Samuel 
  {ihnp4,ubc-vision,vax135}!alberta!edm!steve
  or userzxcv@uqv-mts.bitnet