I think the answer and solution are easy. "Ownership" isn't hard to determine. Almost any country in the world, including the United States, have signed the Berne convention. Which means that unless an author clearly revokes or changes his rights, anything someone creates (including writes) has his/her copyright.

But copyright also gives a solution for the percieved dilemma. If you are afraid your reply isn't going to make sense on its own, then quote the parts you are replying to. Copyright laws do give you the right to quote if that's necessary to write your article.

This isn't a new problem. Usenet has been around since, oh, 20+ years, and email even longer. Parent articles might not be available to the reader, either because they are superseeded, expired, or because they never made it to the reader. It's also inconvenient to have to swap to one or more parent articles. So people quote what they are responding to, and each article makes sense in its own right. They are self-contained.

In reply to Re: Musing on Monastery Content by Anonymous Monk
in thread Musing on Monastery Content by Old_Gray_Bear

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