While it doesn't bother me much either way, I'm a little concerned
about what the other subscribers might think.  Also, there may be
an issue if for-profit publications pick up the contents of this list
routinely (not that they're likely to at present, but they might in
future).

If anybody objects to Chere copying their submissions to the
ferret mailing list in her newsletter, please let us know.
Does anyone think that consent should be obtained from the
original author?

I would think that there would be no problem provided that
attribution is given, giving the name of the author, date,
and mentioning the source.  Something like:

    From Chere Mccoy, Jan 29, 1992 via the Ferret Mailing List

In other publications I've been involved with, I've often
inserted a copyright notice of the form:

    Copyright xxxx Chris Lewis (since there isn't a "Ferret
    Mailing List Inc"), all rights reserved.  Permission is
    freely granted for excerpting articles from this digest
    provided that the author, date and source ("The Ferret
    Mailing List") are given, and that no profit is gained
    directly from the copying of such articles.

The idea being that:
       a) the author gets credit
       b) the mailing list gets credit
       c) money isn't made directly off the sale of articles
          from the mailing list.

(c) basically is intended to prevent someone from binding up
the mailing list and making money off of it.  Which has
happened before with the USENET recipes newsgroup.  However, such
use as represented by forwarding articles to CompuServe or
GEnie, or occasional articles in other publications would be
okay.

What do people think?

[Posted in FML 0209]