spam?

["jesposito" <jesposito@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Isn't this by definition Unsolicited, Commercial, Bulk, Email spam?
JE:  No, it's not, offensive though it may be.  Instant messaging is,
by definition, not email.  If nothing is being sold, it is a stretch to
call it commercial.  And to call it unsolicited is to obscure the fact
that members of these communities make themselves available for
unsolicited communications.  It may be that such communities will become
"gated" in time, requiring proof of membership and insisting that only
certain kinds of communications are permissible (e.g., no legal
warnings, no pornography, etc.).  An adjuct to this is that such gated
communities would be in a good position to negotiate with copyright
holders for community-wide content licenses, much as university
libraries do now for academic research data.  This would reduce the cost
of copyrighted material by lowering the cost of sales (because a vendor
gets potentially millions of users with one sales agreement).


Joseph J. Esposito