You may remember back in 2000, former literary icon turned copyright pest Harlan Ellison sued AOL because people were able to access a couple of his short stories in the Usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.e-book, prompting AOL to block the newsgroup on its servers. This earned Ellison a Big Brother award, which he no doubt keeps next to his Hugo for ""'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," a story about slavery to punctuality and mindless conformity. At the time, I said that if Harlan would send me an address, I would be more than happy to send him money everytime I read one of his stories on the Internet for free. AOL originally got a summary judgment dismissing Harlan's claims, but Harlan appealed, and the summary judgment was partially reversed, leaving open the possibility of a trial in which AOL would have to defend its role as a "passive conduit" for Internet data. Well, it now appears the parties have reached a settlement, and a joint press release has been issued, in which Ellison opines... <<"Through this litigation, I have come to realize that AOL respects the rights of authors and artists, and has a comprehensive system for addressing the complaints of copyright holders. I would not have settled this case if I were not sure that AOL is doing what it can do to fight online piracy. Because not all Internet service providers are as responsible as AOL, and because individual acts of online piracy continue, I am glad to have called attention to the problem of online piracy through this litigation. As promised, I will be repaying every cent of the monies contributed to the KICK Internet Piracy Fund by writers and readers.">> You can read the whole blurb at... http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/cb_press_view.cfm?release_num=55254033 Harlan still doesn't get that it was not a useful thing to get an entire newsgroup blocked over four of his stories, and that like the xeroxing of paperback books, his unhappiness is best addressed not by jackbooted persecution of copyright violators, but by making the works widely available at a reasonable price so people will not have an incentive to reproduce them by other means. Perhaps we can all donate to a fund to buy Harlan a clue. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"