This is fun. I mean it's fun to ponder the legalities. Let's try to be explicit about what has happened here: 1. Publisher implicitly offers Syndicator a licen

This is fun. I mean it's fun to ponder the legalities. Let's try to be explicit about what has happened here: 1. Publisher implicitly offers Syndicator a license to republish his content. 2. Syndicator accepts the implicit license agreement by republishing the content. 3. Syndicator attempts to amend the implicit agreement by transmitting proposed amended terms over an unreliable channel and gain implicit acceptance by silence. 4. Publisher counters with an explicit refusal of the terms over another (more) unreliable channel not only refusing the amended terms but also rejecting the prescribed means of refusing them. Let's say something blows up, and this ends up in court. How would it come down??? It seems obvious the terms were never agreed if either: 1. Syndicator fails to prove that Blogger ever read the email, or 2. Publisher can prove that Syndicator read his published response and yet continued to take his feed. Obviously, the first condition is not met because Publisher said so. We can only speculate on the second. Making it to page one of Hacker News and Hacker Newsletter certainly helps Publisher argue that the second condition is met. But what if neither condition is met? Can a syndicator lob terms over a publisher's fence and, even they are proven to be read, consider silence to constitute agreement? I'm not a lawyer, and I have no idea how it would go. I'd guess there's some obscure case law from the '50s or something that would make or break this case.