Well, an implied contract *IS* an implied contract. It does not *always* hold up in court, but there is no reason why a list owner/subscriber should risk thousands of dollars to challenge that claim. That claim is challengable but there's NO guarantee that you will successfully overturn that claim. > Yes, some lists claim to have rights to whatever is sent to them. I don't > agree with that and doubt they could maintain the claim, unless they > textualy edit every posting, against a serious court claim. On another note, I think whether the claim is challenged or not depends on the material itself more than anything. For instance, if you're say a Microsoft software engineer, and you posted to a non-Microsoft technical mailing list, Microsoft could claim copyright on the writing (because any software advice/idea belongs to them when you work for them - depends on your contract), whether you're using Microsoft's computer systems to write the message or not.