archiving on inet

[Perry E. Metzger]

Lefty says:
> >In what way does my internet provider 
> >(netcom) have a "legal" distribution of usenet news, while a cd-rom 
> >provider does not?
> 
> I have "provided" my postings to Usenet, for the personal use of Usenet
> subscribers.

Excellent. Now, please tell me how to determine if someone is a
subscriber. Is there a big subscriber list available somewhere for the
judge to check?

>  By providing my postings to a particular distribution
> mechanism, I implicitly give permission for them to be redistributed _via_
> _that_ _mechanism_.  I _do_ _not_ give permission for them to be repackaged
> and resold via another medium, any more than David Byrne has given me
> permission to resell cassettes of his music by allowing it to be broadcast
> on the radio.

Wonderful. Now, can you please explain what the usenet transmission
mechanism is? It obviously includes magtapes. It appears to include
CD-ROMs -- they have been used to distribute newsfeeds for years
now. In theory, an NNTP site that never expires articles makes those
articles available forever via NNTP, so time is obviously not a
criterion. Usenet has always been gatewayed to email, so email isn't
excluded (indeed, CNews explicitly provides a "by email" news
distribution mechanism). So, what exactly, is NOT part of the usenet
mechanism?

Perry