Re: Use of Learning-org msgs LO1171

Richard Karash (rkarash@world.std.com)
Fri, 12 May 1995 21:29:52 -0400 (EDT)

Tammy you're raising a good issue! (In LO1170).

The policy on this list is "You own your own words" and there is a
copyright notice "All msgs copyright (c) (their author) unless otherwise
noted."

In other words, our messages are provided for personal reading. Respect
for this policy means asking permission of the author before using their
words other than in this learning-org forum.

It seems very clear to me that advance permission should be the rule if
the use is in anyway commercial (i.e. $ are involved) or if the message is
taken out of the "internet" context and used in a magazine article,
speech, paper, training materials, book, etc.

On the other hand, this forum is open to anyone one the internet, which
means that theorectically anyone in the world can obtain any message for
little or no cost and no remuneration to the author. And, as I have
mentioned on the list, there are subsidiary sites which extend the
learning-org forum within some organizations.

Since learning-org is open to all, is it a breach to:

* Forward one of our messages to someone who might be interested?

* To tack it to the office bulletin board?

* To print a message in it's entirety and distribute paper copies to a
group?

These are a little harder for me to judge. All these actions (assuming no
money is involved) put the message into the hands of people who could
obtain it with reasonable ease for free on the internet.

One more comment -- there is no practical enforcement of these rules, no
police watching, and once material is on the net, there are technology
limits to enforcement. I would, of course, refuse participation to anyone
in gross violation of our rules. But it's relatively easy to disguise
one's identity on the internet, so it's not clear that I could really
keep someone out.

Learning-org is *our* facility and the groundrules should reflect the
thinking of all the participants. Any comments?

Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash>
Innovation Associates, Inc. | email: rkarash@world.std.com
3 Speen St, Framingham MA 01701 | Host for Learning-Org Mailing List
(508) 879-8301 and fax 626-2205 | <http://world.std.com/~lo>

On Fri, 12 May 1995 DEWARTD@SNYBUFAA.CS.SNYBUF.EDU wrote:

> What is the protocol for this list? Should I contact each individual
> author whose work I would want to quote or would I quote as similar to a
> book? I haven't seen this issue raised on this list, so perhaps it is
> question others would be interested in?