Newsgroups: news.misc
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet (an alternative view)
Message-ID: <1989Dec21.045834.6375@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <946@crash.cts.com> <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com> <1989Dec21.024040.25157@athena.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 89 04:58:34 GMT

In article <1989Dec21.024040.25157@athena.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>In article <6576@brspyr1.BRS.Com> tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) writes:
>  It is irrelevant what the specific charges are for.  The fact is
>that if people are reading the postings that are gatewayed to GEnie,
>then GEnie is making money off of them, and GEnie got them for free
>(except for transportation costs; by "free" I mean they didn't pay the
>people who wrote them), and GEnie is not in any way giving the people
>who wrote the original messages part of the profit they are making.

In case you haven't heard, there are already quite a number of sites
on the net that charge for connect time (some of which is spent reading
news).  For example, many university sites charge for connect time.
Nor is it all non-profit; there are a number of for-profit public-access
systems on the net.

Personally, so long as they don't pollute Usenet in some hideous way,
I couldn't care less if they charge money for what is available elsewhere
for free.  And speaking as one of Usenet's heaviest contributors, I know
for certain that some of my stuff is already gatewayed into paying nets,
and I don't care.  Nobody in his right mind is going to promise to pay
royalties to every Usenet poster.  The alternative to free gatewaying
is not paid gatewaying but no gatewaying.  While I would prefer paid
gatewaying to free gatewaying, I prefer free gatewaying to no gatewaying.
-- 
1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
