public newsgroup material copyrights

What are the copyrights on images distributed in newsgroups? Can a person re-distribute these images (some of these images have been scanned from books and distributed to these groups)? If not why, as one could certainly point a person to an image on a public newsgroups? How do the newsgroups avoid legal action?

Thanks
Simon Robertson
<simon[_at_]wearcheck.co.za> Received on Thu Jul 20 2000 - 13:55:03 GMT