Forwarded message:

Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 20:42:46 -0500 (EST) From: "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>

This is why contracts are important. There is no contract, implied or otherwise, to which John Gilmore is bound that forces him to protect everyone's "right" to be subscribed to cpunks and post whatever they want to the list.

The lack of an explicit contract detailing this is what makes it impossible for the operator of the list to enforce such actions. When I subscribed I gave the operator no permission to edit or otherwise control my submissions. I also gave no permission for such submissions to be considered property by any party other than myself. It is not possible to argue that my subscription implied such permission. When I subscribed to the cpunks list it was with the explicit intent of seeing a multiplicity of views, not those views which happen to be acceptable to the list operator. The fact that he chooses to host the list by paying its bills is irrelevant. If the operator wants to protect themselves legaly as well as ethicaly they should put a notice at time of subscription detailing exactly what editorial policies are active as well as sending a policy notification to all currently subscribed members. Jim Choate ps I never saw the post about the camp ground example. If the author would please forward me a copy I would be happy to critique it.