On Mon, 10 May 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: > On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 04:42:14PM -0700, Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> wrote: > > --- Bill Stewart <wks at worldpath.net> wrote: > > > I don't THINK the link has been given, but Our Lord and Master has given > > > an interview with Bookslut: > > > http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_05_002065.php > > > If it has been given, this worthless dung from a dzur apologizes. > > Thanks for the link! As people have been saying, the part about > > someone here suggesting an idea that Steven was planning is a > > bit scary. (If that's a sentence.) > > When this problem has come up elsewhere, the problem has been > solved in two ways that I know of: > > 1) A massive disclaimer in the welcome message that says that you > forfeit any right to your ideas by posting them to the list, in > order to make the author feel safer about reading the list. > You've have to ask a lawyer whether it actually had teeth. > > 2) When the producer of Babylon-5 was participating in online > forums, a system eventually evolved whereby he read only > moderated forums and the moderators aggressively deleted anything > that resembled a story idea. If anything slipped through there > was much chastisement. > > Frankly, I prefer the first system. 1) Can anyone expect copyright on broad plot ideas expressed in a public forum? 2) Wow, what a pain. While the above is interesting, I really hope that we find out in the fullness of time what the prescient list idea was.