On 02/14/2018 10:13 AM, Marina wrote:
if I should have known better
What to migrate, and how to migrate it, are issues that list-owners have
discussed since at least 1980. Back then, "best practice" was to send
two or three emails that contained the new address for the list, and how
to subscribe to it, and then unsubscribing everybody from the old
mailing list. If you lost 70% of the subscriber base doing so, well so
be it.
relocate just members without their own content (messages).
How useful will third parties find the list content?
For a software support list, it probably contains some useful material.
For a social chat list, it probably can be forgotten, with minimal loss.
do you think I could be still sued for copyright violation?
What country do you live in?
In the United States, you can be sued for any reason, or no reason at
all. The issue is whether or not the other party has a case that a
lawyer will take on contingency.
In the United Kingdom, solicitors ask about your ability to pay the
barristers retained by the other side.
This difference in who pays, means that petty squabbles in the United
States are far more likely to go to court, than in the United Kingdom.
Europe has "Right to be forgotten" legislation, which mandates all
knowledge of the individual be wiped from the record. This isn't
copyright at play ---- individuals have had stories in which they are
merely incidental by-passers purged from newspaper morgues.
#
I've migrated lists, and included their archives.
I've migrated lists, and excluded their archives.
Five years down the line, the presence or absence of the list archives
makes no difference to the list subscribers.
For historians in the field that the list covers, list archives are
incredibly useful pieces of data.
Even a list as mundane as "The 541 Front Road Home Owners Association
Off-Topic Chat List" can be useful for historians of that neighbourhood.
However, few organisations have the resources to preserve digital artefacts.
Were I to migrate a list today, I would:
* Migrate the list subscribers;
* Back up list archives, and transfer them to an appropriate historical
society, library, or museum;
thereby making the new site look, and feel brand-new.
jonathon
