I want to thank everyone for their input on this topic, very enlightening... Seems to me that if a work is by simply being created has a copyright on it then every inet provider who stores material a hard drive could be prosecuted for copyright infringement. There has been some question raised as to why this is important to cpunks, it goes like this. If we are going to creat a workable system then some form of release has to be done so that work that goes over inet is public unless explicity noted as copyrighted and must include a fair use statement OR it must be in a form that prohibits casual access. What this last point means to me is that if it is copyrighted it should be encrypted. This encryptred file would have a address and public key attacked. To unlock the file you would contact the author and fulfill their requirements for fair use (ie pay money for a book). The author would then send a private key to the user who coul then unlock the file and use it. Anyone who had possession of a unlocked file without a private key and being on the authors list of authorized users would be committing a clear case of theft. Anyone who gave a third party a valid private key would be committing conspiracy. At this point I expect my home node to come online in a couple of weeks (we may have finaly solved the bugs that kept us down) and should start allowing public access a week or so after that. Each user who calls my system will need agree to a statement of something like the following: I, (username), agree that any material which I create on this system or one of its satellite systems is public domain. I also agree that this statement is binding to my physical person and not to a particular handle or name that I may choose to use or change. I further agree that any material of commercial or of a copyrighted nature MUST contain a fair use policy that prohibits ONLY commercial use AND will contain a real address by which any person may contact me for further interaction. I further agree that any file which is of a commercial or copyrighted nature and does not fulfill the above conditions MUST be encrypted and contain in plain-text a address whereby a person may contact me for access the un-encrypted material. I further agree that as long a the file is encrypted OR contains a fair use statement I wiwll not bring any legal proceeding against ANY provider or user in Internet or other electronic system this material may be transfered to for storage. Does anyone see any problems with such a proviso?