Pleading the 5th

[Greg Newby]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 04:09:50PM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Daniel J. Boone wrote:
> 
> > List owners have nothing to do with, and cannot affect, the intellectual
> > property rights of list contributors.  Your aspirations to the contrary
> > notwithstanding.
> 
> Actually they can if there is a contract that requires it and you as a IP
> owner sign it.
>...

In the real world, you don't even need to sign.  Sending a letter
to a newspaper or calling a radio station often implicitly gives
permission to redistribute it in any form.  (Ownership might
still be an issue, but IP rights go to the paper or radio station).

Newspapers have letter guidelines; radio stations might have
periodic announcements about their use of recorded calls or
an announcement on their phone line.  These are enough.

The cyber-equivalent would be some sort of standard policy
that's sent to people when they subscribe or is otherwise available
to subscribers and periodically publicized.

  -- Greg