This is an interesting opinion, but I hesitate to encourage you to
develop it further. For example, if you write a letter to the editor
and the editor prints it, does it become "public domain"? If you
write an article and an editor prints it, does it become "public
domain"? No, because it was *published* and remains the intellectual
property of the publisher. Only after the material has been around
for some number of years [Anyone know what that is in the U.S.?]
will it be considered public domain.
The catch with your posting senario is that I think that you *are* a
publisher -- you're publishing your thoughts [or the collected thoughts
of others] every time you post your FAQ. So, to me, the question is
do Electronic publishers deserve to derive revenue from their publishings,
despite the fact that the cost of such publishing is small [miniscule,
really]?
> Using two fairly common usenet analogies, I think it is pointless and
> unenforceable to get upset with people who make photocopies of the flier
> you stapled to every telephone pole in sight. Once something been dropped
> onto the net, there is no way to trace or track that information -- you
> might as well drop leaflets from an airplane.
Well, that's not entirely true. It is certainly the case that no current
applications use this tracking ability. But it is certainly feasible that
you could build this billing/tracking software into the current mail/news
software, having the money automagickally deducted from your e-bank account
and transferred to the publisher [usually the author]. You likely couldn't
prevent fraud 100%, but you could make it highly attractive to *not* fraud,
resulting in participation levels above 80%.
Jon Boone | PSC Networking | boone@psc.edu | (412) 268-6959
finger boone@psc.edu for PGP public key block
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