Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00212)

Hi. I'm writing a brief piece on intellectual rights and the
ethics of mailing lists. Following is a draft of some early
thoughts. I'm posting it to both theos-talk, theos-l, and
ti-l for comments from the three respective groups of writers,
because I'd appreciate feedback from writers on these lists.

-- Eldon

 A posting is the intellectual property of its writer. When someone
 submits an article to a magazine, the magazine gets copyright for
 use of the article as part of an integral whole. It may not reuse
 the article separately nor in other contexts. These other rights
 to the article belong to the author.

 Posting something to a mailing list is effectively submitting an
 article to a magazine. The author has implicitly given copyright
 to the list to publish the work. That includes the initial posting,
 the quoting in replies, and the inclusion of the piece in the
 list archives.

 Reposting an piece to another list, or on a news group, is effectively
 reprinting an article in another magazine. This is something that
 should not be done without the author's permission. Sometimes
 there may be *implicit* permission. That is, it is clear by what
 is written that it is fine with the author to repost (republish)
 the work. Whenever it's not clear-cut, it's always best -- and
 quite easy -- to write the author.

 It's also acceptable to cite small portions of a work in a
 critical review. When that review is held on another list or
 news group, though, there's the question of intellectual
 honesty. The small portions quoted from a single message in
 an on-going discussion can easily be out-of-context, and
 wildly misrepresent the nature of the discussion and what
 the writer was saying. This can range from a mild misrepresentation
 of the author's views to bitter back-stabbing in a place where
 the author is not present to defend themselves. If someone
 wants a similar discussion on a different list, it's quite
 easy to simply make a few statements, perhaps including some
 ideas that they disagree with, and let things go from there.