I am hard pressed to believe that it IS a violation of the copyright laws to link in LBO posts, but the threat of litigation and is incumbant costs are the real issue.     Ian Murray <seamus2001@attbi.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">>> Without going into all the legal technicalities and four-part tests of fair use, the argument is that copyright infringement involves any reproduction of copyrighted materials that undermines the market or substitutes for the original work. Since posting the whole article means that a person will not go to the original site (seeing the advertising) or pay for archive access later, the original copyright holder has been deprived of income and thus an infringement has occurred. ================ This presumes that persons reading the article intended to view said article at said website absent the ability to have it delivered serendipitously to their email address by virtue of participating on a list. >> What of fair use, you might say? Well, some argue it has largely been abolished, especially as courts have ! sa! id that non-profits can be considered commercial entrprises through fundraising in cases of copyright infringement that serves such purposes. In the case of LBO, it could be argued that the whole LBO list is a sophisticated advertising endeavor by Doug to sell copies of the print LBO; thus all the copyrighted materials serve his financial self-interest and has no fair use protection. ============== So it boils down to who determines, via their description of various behaviors on LBO, *the intent* and *content* of Doug's mind. That's problematic to say the least. >> Of course, linking can follow the same argument, so the reductio argument is that all use of materials, whether articles or links, can happen only at the discretion of the original copyright holder. ================= The self-ownership fetish, taken to those extremes would take up too much law enforcement $$ and personnel; so even if ! th! e courts validated such form[s] of self-ownership in theory, in practice the costs of enforcement would drain state and federal law enforcement budgets no? Ian </BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do You Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/welcome/*http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en/spl">Sign-up for Video Highlights</a> of 2002 FIFA World Cup