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Certain text files and messages contained on this site deal with activities and devices which would be in violation of various Federal, State, and local laws if actually carried out or constructed. The webmasters of this site do not advocate the breaking of any law. Our text files and message bases are for informational purposes only. We recommend that you contact your local law enforcement officials before undertaking any project based upon any information obtained from this or any other web site. We do not guarantee that any of the information contained on this system is correct, workable, or factual. We are not responsible for, nor do we assume any liability for, damages resulting from the use of any information on this site.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Copyright Policy

totse.com fully supports holders of legitimate copyrights.

From 1989 until about 1998 Jeff Hunter ran a dial-up BBS system called "& the Temple of the Screaming Electron." It was widely regarded as the largest text file distribution BBS in the world.

In those days, if someone wrote something and wanted it to be distributed and read, they'd stick a "freely reproducible" stamp on it, upload their story to as many text file BBSes as possible and hope that people would download the text that they wrote.

The totse.com text file archives have grown since 1989 to encompass over 50,000 text files. The vast majority of these were written for free distribution, to get as wide of an audience as possible. Many of the files are copyrighted by the authors but are also freely distributable as long as credit is given to the author for their words.

Copyright implies ownership of the words. If the copyright holder wishes to make those words freely distributable, that's up to them. Copyright does not mean that something cannot be copied, only that the holder of the copyright reserves the right to decide whether and how something may be copied.

With as many files as people have sent to us, it's entirely likely that there are copyrighted files in our archives which are not freely distributable. It is NOT our intention to pirate copyrighted works. If you spot a page on our web site that is copyrighted and not freely distributable, please contact us and include the URL of the page in question. Just highlight the URL on your web browser, then copy and paste the file name into the message you send. Without the file name, we cannot track the file down and correct the problem.

If you are not the holder of the copyright in question, we will simply remove the page once we've established that it is indeed copyrighted material and is not freely distributable.

Government publications are not eligible for copyright protection under United States law. Works by agents, representatives or members of federal, state or local governments, whether paid or unpaid, are therefore in the public domain. This includes the legislative, judical or executive branches, the U.S. military, all law enforcment agencies and all other agencies or divisions which are supported by taxpayer dollars, such as the U.S. Center for Disease Control and other quasi-governmental organizations.

All works produced under sponsorship, subsidy, direction or control of the U.S. Goverment, their agents or representatives, whether classified or unclassified, including all works produced by independent organizations receiving direct funding from the U.S. Goverment for such works are ineligible for copyright protection.

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