🚀 go-pugleaf

David Schreck <schreck@wimsey.com> wrote:

>Some of you may have seen a story Kim Emmerson (CKNW reporter) did on 
>Voice of the Legislature (cable broadcast every Wed night) about how some 
>folks in the basement of the bunker (where GCO is housed) record various 
>television and radio broadcasts.  

There are a couple concerns I have with this one, David.

You may recall a conversation we had about Crown copyright on BC Statutes
and how protective the government/civil service were of that.  Please bear
in mind that in this instance we are talking about public documents
authored under commission of elected public officials and published at
public expense, ergo public property.

How come nobody, either in governemnt or in the civil service, has clued in
on the idea that a newscast or a newspaper story is also protected by
copyright.  How come that they do not recognize the fact that although once
published or broadcast the story becomes public knowledge, but NOT public
PROPERTY ??  News organizations spend literally millions of dollars in
order to get the news and to enjoy the benefits of their bringing it to
their audiences.

The rules of normal practice is that you may briefly quote from a news
story, giving full credit to the authors but you CANNOT reproduce it in
whole or in any substantial parts, and you may not store it in any medium,
nor may you re-distribute it without the express, written, prior permission
of the publisher.

The proper practice, would also be that if you want to send  a clipping to
7 people in the government, you buy 7 copies of the newspaper.  You see, my
Socialist friend, THAT is the entire point of the papers publishing the
news, to sell newspapers.

What this system is doing is similar to the government buying one copy of a
wordprocessor and allowing the entire civil service to copy and use it.


At the risk of getting Ed foaming at the mouth again, this kind of attitude
jibes perfectly with the "serving the social needs of the people and not
for profit"  Marxist crap in your party constitution.

The other concern I have is that since this (illegal) storage and retrieval
system is paid for by the taxpayers money, why is it that only a select
group of people on the government side have access to it?  Why is access
denied to the Opposition Members and their staff??

>To try to characterize this as 
>anything other than an attempt to improve a long standing electronic 
>clipping service is nothing but propaganda and distortion.

You forgot to add that the media are a bunch of fascists.  You don't have
to credit Vander Zalm for saying it either.  Just put it in your computer
and show it off to your friends and relatives.

Sorry David, I don;t buy this "other previous governments have been doing
it, too"  You told us in the last election that your government would be
different. That defense is not available to you, unless you are willing to
admit that the NDP as a party and every one of its Candidates in the last
election as a individual, lied to us.

Again and again, the NDP is trying to convince us that the ends justify the
means.  They appear to believe that they can do anything they bloody well
want to as long as they think that they are doing it "for the public good"
or " for the good of the cause".  Laws are apparently for other people but
not for the NDP and its government.

They just don't get it, do they?


Karl Pollak
Bottom Line Productions           Canadian Infomaticon BBS,
Richmond, British Columbia        Fido 1:153/965  (604) 275-9579