Tagging copyrighted text

[Marc.Ringuette at GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU]

Dear ld23178, 

True, the abandonment of copyright isn't going to happen right away.
But I disagree with your claim that on the network of the future the
artist will make a few pennies per copy by being the most convenient
provider of the information.  The author is very unlikely to be the
most convenient and least expensive provider of their work, since they
have no advantage over specialists in the information providing business.

Your point about "unix pipes" across the network is an excellent one,
though.  Information filtering and processing services will be very
valuable and harder to obtain for free.  "Insert a 25c electronic coin
and a pile of news articles, and I'll filter them for you."


-- Marc Ringuette (mnr at cs.cmu.edu)