> I asked about 'netiquette' and tried to leave aside the question of
> whether it was *LEGAL* to forward a message on to other forums....
It's hard to see how it could be illegal unless your intention was to defame
or harass, e.g., taking a message from someone else and reposting it in 100
random alt.sex groups. Turning email into a book is a separate issue, one of
the fair use criteria is the commercial potential of material, and if it's
valuable enough to put into a book, clearly the author deserves a crack at
the money to be earned thereby.
On the other hand, I've always felt that it's rude to forward mail without
permission, regardless of the forum. In comp.compilers, I've always told
anyone who forwarded a third party message to ask the original author to
resend it, or at least confirm that it's OK to forward. And I've gotten
occasional clueless but very angry mail from people who read a crossposted
message in another newsgroup, replied to it, and got bent out of shape that
the message showed up in my newsgroup.
Regards,
John Levine, comp.compilers moderator,
[EMAIL PROTECTED], http://iecc.com/compilers
