[ih] Simple question

[Joe Touch]

Ted Faber wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 01:46:51AM +0100, Lloyd Wood wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, Ted Faber wrote:
> > >
> > > To my (limited) knowledge, this type of document is unique to (or at
> > > least originated in) the Internet community.  Can anyone confirm, deny
> > > or add any background?
> >
> > usenet posts expire (well, they used to....) Papers referencing usenet
> > posts by message-id are legion. mostly amongst sociologists discussing
> > usenet behaviour, but...
> 
> Yeah, they expire, but again, one could archive them and cite them,
> which I assume is what the sociologists do.  I also believe that the
> expiration data for news was a matter of conserving disk space, not of
> philospohically enforcing a time limit. 

Having been involved in this discussion in the past, one significant
purpose had nothing to do with space. The free exchange of ideas
sometimes requires that things be said that disappear; bad ideas
that don't always come back to haunt the author.

The idea of IDs was to allow that free exchange, without the
threat of an archival record.

The bad news is that some of the bad ideas later became good 
ideas which others patented (or are still patenting). An archive
of IDs would be useful to provide a trail to invalidate such
patents. 

However, note that IDs published prior to March 1994 did not 
include a copyright transfer, as required by RFC 1602. In the
absence of such a transfer, copyright remains with the author. 
Archiving and serving those documents is a violation of the
copyright of the author, IMO.

Expiration times of IDs were very explicit; serving them 
past their explicit expiry is a violation of copyright, again,
IMO. Prior to 1994, it is the author's copyright; after 3/1994,
it is unclear whether it is ISOC's or if the copyright reverted
to the author at expiry.

Joe