Salvaging from Countryside

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Freedom! self reliance : One Thread

People, I am not a lawyer nor am I associated with Countryside beyone numerous posts there. I am here by invitation and I think that some laws of copyrights might be being broken. Countryside own their forum including the content even though that content was free to them and to the public for its own use. Your reposting could be viewed as thieft; now if Dave and/or Ken were the Anti Christ would not they have a bank of lawyers on your butts allready? The truth of it is that more than one person complained about "the broken record" style of posting conserning reiligon. This is as annoying as a misquito when your trying to sleep. When those postings left the listed catagories they (it) was deleted, same as the one from somebody who was rambling and raveing about the McVey mess form a very drunken standpoint. How can so much rightousness escape from such closed minds?

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 25, 2001

Answers

What if we were only to post things that we personally had written? I can see where there could be a problem reposting stuff from other people, especially folks who do not want it posted, but stuff I wrote myself? I wrote it, but can't cut and copy it for my own or other's use? But they didn't write it, yet could print it and sell it if they so desire? Doesn't a copyright have to be listed or something to be effective? I am more than a little confused now...

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), June 25, 2001.

There can't be copyright infringement on a public forum, if it isn't being used for profit. There have been two people who asked not to have their postings included and one who wanted her email changed. That is completely reasonable, but not even necessary as it is a public forum and all this internet stuff is still very sketchy in a legal sense.

I DO understand where the question of ethics comes in. That is certainly not without cause of concern, yet, this info is for informational purposes and for the preservation of the vast body of work that the Countryside forum contains. Which they don't own...they sponsor the site and are completely in control of what does and doesn't get allowed on the board and have access to the knowledge base there to aid in their magazine. However, they don't own the information contained there. It's all the folks who contributed that made the archives so precious.

I don't think Dave or Ken are the anti Christ at all, and since there is no attempt nor desire to utilize the info for monetary nor personal gain of any sort, there wouldn't be a case. If there were a leg to stand on in that argument it would have to be and have been disclosed on the page you contribute answers on.

The basis of the magazine was always to help people learn to become less reliant on the unsutainable system we have in place, in this country and the world at large now. That's the spirit in which the preservation of the archives is proposed. I want nothing from it other than to be able to access the info that we all helped to compile.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), June 25, 2001.


Doreen, I am not a lawyer, I do not understand whats legal or not; I am trying to keep you and others from getting in trouble with an action that I believe to be questionable. PERIOD. Further Applicant Sayeth Not....

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 25, 2001.

If this is indeed the "Freedom! and Self Reliance" forum, maybe we shouldn't copy posts from Commieside for another reason: if we are interested in self reliance, we ought to be self reliant. We need to learn to share useful info from the decent people who came to this forum to post.

Sure, we'll have to start over--but hey--that's what we are doing. Since we don't have a physical magazine (yet) I suggest "Backwoods Home" as a good replacement.

I'm GLAD to find you guys over here; I don't feel like I'm missing a thing. To make this forum have more info simply ASK MORE QUESTIONS. And if someone asks something you can help him or her with, well, take the time to explain, inform, or direct. A website or a phone number can help a lot without costing you much effort.

Finally there is a Biblical reason to leave the posts from Commieside alone: it's kind of like shaking the dust off our shoes.

Finally, Mitch,(while meaning you no personal harm) let he who first mentions lawyers be sued.....then dunned......then served.....then subpoened.... and finally.....be damned.

-- Rags (RaggedReb@aol.com), June 25, 2001.


Just my two cents worth here: Don't care if CS stuff survives or not. No malice there at all, just that if i need to know something, I'll either look it up myself somewhere on the net or in one of my many good books, or post a question on another forum. If I thought that that site was that valuable, I would not have left it in January. Since i don't care, I also don't care if other folks copy the info they want. To my knowledge, there was never any copyright notice posted on the CS forum, that's why CS can use the material anyone has posted there in their magazine..it's a public forum and nobody legally owns the postings. People are always going to get their undies in a bunch about something. God bless.

-- Lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), June 25, 2001.


I really don't care to go through all of this hoopla when you can just go and buy it and the thing WAS posted on Cside forum. You can buy your own words and no one else who doesn't know about it will be able to know what to do when they have an animal problem, or forgot how to make ice cubes. Then whine to me about how violated you are by having junk that you put on the internet on the internet...sheesh.

http://home.att.net/~ofuzzy1/cs-sale.htm

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), June 25, 2001.


Rags, what chapter and verse are you refering to?

Doreen, can you run that ice cube thing by me again, I can't get the water to hold that squarish shape long enough to put it in the trays?!!

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 26, 2001.


Matthew 10:14-15

-- Rags (RaggedReb@aol.com), June 26, 2001.

An orginal thought is copyrighted by the simple fact its written. The medium or the public vs private media is unimportant. Now the issues is totaly within the a fourms usage policy. If my usage policy gives me the right for using your words in some other media then that would not be theft or a copyright viloation. Now copying between fourms is another issue and again would be decided by the fourm agreement.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), July 02, 2001.

Countryside doesn't "own" the forum, Phil Greenspun does. He just opens up his servers to outside users, apparently without cost. And as much as it might bother some people, until copyright law is changed just about anything posted on a public forum is in the public domain, unless it has a pre-existing copyright, such as reprints from books or news wires (where there IS a real question of copyright infringement, IMO). I've had my postings reprinted in everything from magazines to investor newsletters, all without permission or compensation, and there's not a thing I could do about them.

An argument could be made that postings on a private, password-protected forum might be protected conversation, but I'm not familiar enough with recent court rulings to say for sure.

-- Cash (Cash@andcarry.com), July 02, 2001.



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