Re: [xml-dev] Abuse of this list

["Jeremy H. Griffith" <jeremy@omsys.com>]

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:20:48 -0400, Ian Graham <ian.graham@utoronto.ca> 
wrote:

>Do any mailing lists have written charters to restrict types of reuse 
>for contributed content?  I have never seen anything like that, 

Yes.  Notably, Yahoo! Groups has a TOS prohibiting external archives.
While the primary reason is probably to force viewing of their ads,
a secondary one is protection of the email addresses of contributors.
This recently came up with the [HATT] list (Help Authoring Tools and 
Techniques), and resulted in the banning of the members (a commercial
entity) who created the archive.

>nor have 
>I seen sig lines referencing individual contributor's copyright 
>policies. 

I've seen those too, and they always struck me as a bit inappropriate
for posts to a public list.  But maybe not...

>Either of those might,  at a minimum might, make someone think 
>twice about reusing material....

I think we need to distinguish between "fair use" (noncommercial,
with credit given to the author, for critique or parody) and
expropriation (commercial use, no credit).  The instance described
by the OP in this thread is the latter, IMHO.

>I agree entirely with Len's comments, but as there is currently nothing 
>to proscribe such reuse (and indeed the general tendency to encourage 
>it), perhaps a written, gentle reminder to the contrary would help??

This discussion should at least cause those links to go away.  ;-)
I can see providing nice, searchable archives for the public good
with perhaps one link at the start page to the commercial sponsor
if any, except where that would violate list rules or the provider's
TOS.  But the sort of linking described by the OP can only alienate 
possible customers.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy@omsys.com>  http://www.omsys.com/