Zefram <zefram@fysh.org> wrote: > I'm surprised that Habeas has caught on even to the extent it has, as > I see a fatal flaw in this use of copyright to get legal control. It > is reminiscent of a legal case I recall where a games console refused > to execute any game unless a certain copyright notice (ascribing > copyright to the console manufacturer) appeared in a known location > in the game ROM. Third-party game manufacturers put the notice in > their games, and were hauled into court. The court held that the > copyright notice in question was a functional part of the interface > between the game and the console, and that this overrode its normal > semantic of signifying copyright ownership. Where this analogy breaks down, is that Habeas is not interfering with the functionality of non-Habeas email. First, what to do with marked or unmarked email is entirely up to the recipient (or his ISP, or whoever else is doing spam filtering). Second, it is not saying "everything else is spam" (and therefore delaying it getting through, except by comparison), just "this is not spam". A better analogy would be, say, any sort of optional certification. You're perfectly welcome to buy electrical devices not approved by Underwriters Laboratories, but if you (or your electrician, or purchasing department) DO insist on UL-approved devices, you'll have a lower risk of shorts, shock, fire, etc. I don't know for sure, but I ass-u-me UL would take a Very Dim View of manufacturers putting a UL-Approved label on devices that really weren't, and may have legal recourse through lawsuits asking for damages (especially punitive) that outweigh the faker's likely profit. > FWIW, my spam filter picks up Habeas headers as a strong ham > indicator, appearing in 0.4% of ham in my corpus Their web site explains the name, but I just gotta wonder if they were punning on that as well.... -- David J. Aronson, Unemployed Software Engineer near Washington DC See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, and other info