Copyright Policy

totse.com fully supports holders of legitimate copyrights.

From 1989 until about 1998 I 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 totse.com's staff 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 personally are the holder of the copyright in question and can prove it, we offer the following remedies:

1. We can remove the page in question.
2. Or, if you are willing to send us a letter authorizing our use of your words, we will provide a link from our copy of your copyrighted work to your home page. Since totse.com gets hundreds of thousands of hits per day, this should help to increase traffic at your site as well. Send letters to: totse.com, P.O. Box 5378, Walnut Creek, California, 94596.

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.