At 9:00 am this morning, NC News received a letter from Abbey Rogers, Rights and Permissions Manager, CNET: The Computer Network.

In her letter, MS Rogers states:

"It has been brought to my attention that your section, As I See It, on the site NC News located at http://www.ncns.com on the World Wide Web contains proprietary material owned by CNET."...

"Unfortunately, your reproduction of our pages, including graphics, color scheme, editorial content and code infringes our copyright and trademark rights. We ask that you kindly remove CNET's pages located at http://www.ncns.com/ASISEEIT/cnet/gaynet2.html and at http://www.ncns.com/ASISEEIT/cnet/gaynet.html from your site by August 18, 1997, or we will be forced to contact our lawyers."

We have answered MS Rogers' letter by saying the the information is only stored on our site in a "not for profit" section so that it cannot be altered to misrepresent the truth. We have further advised MS Rogers that we will adequately label the "pages" as being facsimiles.

We, at NC News, believe that the ability (or lack of thereof) to store factual historical data for informational use has far ranging implications. We welcome your comments on this subject, and will keep you informed of any new developments on this subject. Please address your comments to historical_data@ncns.com .