Re: <nettime> Usenet archives sold [2x]

["nettime's digestive system" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:42:23 +0100 (CET)
From: Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> Usenet archives sold

Well,

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Amy Alexander aka plagiari@plagiarist.org wrote:

> it's
> interesting to think how in some ways usenet was the original gnutella, or
> would that be napster... well, not really either, but... this seems to be
> a lot of the issue - something that started out as being distributed and
> mirrored on servers throughout the world gets archived at what could be
> considered a single point of failure, and the fun begins.

The fun, hmm.. comparing usenet with napster because of the distributed
structure. Open source, what ? The database structure in itself ? The
single messages, articles ? I remember well somebody claiming his
copyright for good reasons, it was used to sell winmodem, urgghhh...

First of all, napster is, to say it mildly, expropriation of the artists.
It has nothing to do with private copying or fair use and it is dangerous,
if you like private copying, to mix those things.

On the other hand, archiving usenet should be organised by some public
entity. Maybe it is european thinking to think that it shouldnt be
organised this way, but the question of financing such a thing is
something different. Bill Gates could give money to the Smithonean
Institution of something like that. Isnt this a case of applied ethnology?

H.

----- End forwarded message -----



Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 04:15:24 -0800
From: Amy Alexander <plagiari@plagiarist.org>
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> Usenet archives sold

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Heiko Recktenwald wrote:

> > a lot of the issue - something that started out as being distributed and
> > mirrored on servers throughout the world gets archived at what could be
> > considered a single point of failure, and the fun begins.
> 
> The fun, hmm.. comparing usenet with napster because of the distributed
> structure. 
yes.

> Open source, what ? The database structure in itself ? 
>The  single messages, articles ? 

this is what's on the table. they are 2 separate issues, apparently both
under discussion. i think people would most like distributed access to the
archives, so they don't keep disappearing depending on what happens
to/because of a single corporate entity. they'd also like access to the
deja code for database searching and archiving, but people could always
write a new one.. (and i recall the deja system not working very reliably
anyway, so maybe that's all for the best... ) but with the archives only
held by one corporate entity, a corporation could disappear or do anything
with them...


>I remember well somebody claiming his
> copyright for good reasons, it was used to sell winmodem, urgghhh...

yes, this doesn't change. usenet posts have always been distributed to
many servers. they only funnel down to one place (deja/google) when they
become archived.  presuming, that is, that all the universities and other
servers that host usenet don't have backups. (rumors are starting to
circulate that some actually may.) but that doesn't change the owners'
copyright.  (also, open source is not inconsistent with copyright. it
generally makes use of copyright to keep work distributable; since this is
the opposite of its usual use this is called "copyleft." but copyleft is
in fact copyright.)

an interesting issue that's come up in yesterday's slashdot discussion on
the subject, is that evidently there is an expiration date on usenet
posts. that could mean that not only could efforts to make it distributed
have problems, but deja and google have been breaking the law all along!

in any case, it doesn't seem that deja/google has any more legal right to
copyrighted posts than a distributed effort would have..the posters did
not license the rights to deja/google either. (usual ianal disclaimer
applies.)


> 
> First of all, napster is, to say it mildly, expropriation of the
> artists. It has nothing to do with private copying or fair use and it is
> dangerous, if you like private copying, to mix those things. 

i was only referring to the distributed structure of usenet - which it's
had all along. we could of course start a whole discussion about whether
it's actually the artists or the RIAA who are being expropriated by
napster, but that would be offtopic for this thread.  in any case, i have
absolutely no love of the napster corp.  for a variety of reasons..

what i was talking about was the structural issue. when napster and
gnutella came out, they received a lot of attention for their distributed
nature, peer to peer issues, etc... because people were thinking of them
in comparison to the web - which generally isn't very distributed at
all... peer to peer distribution systems hold promise for things other
than commercial pop songs - such as alternative political speech - because
it's so much harder to censor something when it's copied onto thousands of
systems. (the freenet idea - should have mentioned them in my previous
post.) napster, it turns out, *does* have a single point of failure and
only serves mp3's - so it's not really of much use in this context.

what i was pointing out was that napster and gnutella didn't really invent
the distributed structure - usenet has been distributed for many years. it
is in some ways more like freenet, actually. but, as i mentioned in my
earlier post, it's not exactly like any of them. (posters don't usually
have their own servers; you can't really think of it as peer to peer.)
still, i think it should be remembered that usenet brought us the
distributed structure long before napster, gnutella, freenet, etc.

> 
> On the other hand, archiving usenet should be organised by some public
> entity. Maybe it is european thinking to think that it shouldnt be 
> organised this way, but the question of financing such a thing is
> something different. Bill Gates could give money to the Smithonean
> Institution of something like that. Isnt this a case of applied ethnology?
> 
one issue is, *which* public entity? some have proposed the library of
congress. they are apparently americans.. already some non-americans have
pointed out they'd rather see it in corporate hands, where they can pay
money or view ads on equal footing regardless of what country they live
in... the problem with entrusting it to any national public entity is that
it holds no obligation to any other country's citizens. should the UN take
charge? that's not really fair to everybody either... or, should every
country have the option of having their own copy? we are then back to the
distributed archiving idea. another issue is, what if we give it to the
smithsonian, e.g., and they come up with a terrible search and threading
interface, so we can't find articles easily? if anyone could have a copy
of the archive, some of those people would undoubtedly build better
interfaces than the us government. :-) but, this is traditional open
source thinking... e.g., if everyone can have access to the linux kernel,
some of those people will produce easy to install, convenient
distributions with nice security features, etc....

btw, i don't think too many 15-year-olds are going to start archiving
usenet - that archive takes a *lot* of diskspace... serious inquiries only
for this task....

anyway, my point: usenet starts out as distributed:  when you post to
usenet, your post is copied to servers all over the world who have chosen
to subscribe to that particular group. anybody can run a usenet server
with the requisite diskspace and bandwidth, just as anybody can run a
webserver.  but, due to diskspace limitations, most sites automatically
delete messages that are no longer current. so, it's all distributed
already up until the archiving... it doesn't seem so outrageous that the
archiving would be distributed also, and would probably result in making
it more accessible to more people than restricting it to one public
entity.

btw, yesterday's slashdot discussion on this brings up some pretty good
issues; it's worth a read; at least a skim.

ciao,
-@




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