[Air-l] Usenet Archives and the search engine at google.com

[Jay Hauben]

Hi,

Posting on Usenet has always been freely done as contibuting to the
common wealth. It has also always been expected that posts were part
of ongoing discussions and would expire in some finite time at every
newsfeed site. The archiving of Usenet posts and the "ownership" of
such archives by commercial entitites raises many questions. An
article addressing some of these questions in the context of
google.com appears in the current issue of the journal Science Studies
15:1(2002), 61-68.

"Commodifying Usenet and the Usenet Archive or Continuing the
Online Cooperative Usenet Culture?" by Ronda Hauben

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/usenetstts.pdf

Abstract

This article explores the conflict between the cooperative online culture
of users who have created Usenet and the corporate commodification of
Usenet posts by companies archiving the posts. The clash of decision-
making processes is presented thorough the details of how Usenet
users choose to petition a company to provide protection for the
public archives it had collected. The company disregarded the petition
and the archives were sold to another company. The new company has begun
to put its own copyright symbol on the posts in its archives. How will
such a commodification affect the cooperative nature of Usenet itself
and the continuing vitality of Usenet's cooperative culture The article
explores this culture clash and considers possible consequences.


http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/usenetstts.pdf


Take care.

Jay