Hello cypherpunks. I've been trying to track down the Internet legend of `Usenet on CD' haphazardly for some time, and finally got lucky by accident. The first service was apparently started by Kent Landfield, a FAQ editor and entrepreneur who worked with 3 others and `quickly became overwhelmed' by the response and demand. This was under the company Sterling Software. They handed it off to CD Publishing Corporation, Vancouver, British Columbia, CA who is at this moment distributing Usenet on CDs! Each disk has about 600 megabytes of news. Shipped within 30 days after the last date on the disk. Uses standard ISO 9660 CD format, Rock Ridge extension planned. They have Mac and Unix software on the disk, DOS software planned, with other software acceptable if it is ISO 9660 compliant. Prices range from $40 + 5 s/h per disk down to $24 per disk for 24 disks. The legal aspects of this are interesting. K. Landfield <Kent_Landfield@sterling.com>is probably one of the best experts on dealing with laywers on internet topics, and on copyright law & redistribution rights as they apply to Usenet. Interestingly, notably the highest traffic Usenet groups are purposely *omitted* from the disks based on copyright quagmires:

The following newsgroups are not supported due to legal reasons:

alt.binaries.*, alt.sex.*, alt.toon-pics, alt.tasteless, de.alt.binaries.*, fj.binaries.*, rec.arts.erotica

BTW, the fact that semi- and wholly-pornographic material comprises a very large portion of Usenet traffic (see news.lists) makes the whole Usenet medium somewhat vulnerable to future legislative and public assaults. Remember that new NY Tax increase on telecommunications services I posted? The `conventional wisdom' is that it isn't very threatening, just a `sin tax' on the `phone sex' numbers. Now, look at how much of Usenet traffic is in lewd digitized pictures, and decide if smugness and complacency are maintainable! ===cut=here=== For orders, inquiries, and technical support, please contact : NetNews on CD's CD Publishing Corporation 4824 Fraser Street Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V5V 4H4 604-874-1430 800-333-7565 (USA) 604-874-1431 (FAX) <info@CDPublishing.COM> Note: E-mail orders currently cannot be accepted.