Rick Welykochy wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Lars Gaarden wrote:
>
>>From: "Rick Welykochy" <rick@praxis.com.au>
>>
>>>Legal precedents have already been established o'seas that make it
>>>clear that a carrier/ISP is *not* responsible for content it
>>>transmits or hosts. Rather, the author of the content is responsible.
>>>The cases concerned libel, IIRC.
>>>
>>Legal precedent or not:
>>http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirate/print.html
>>
>
> Not. Although an interesting article, there is no precedent mentioned, since
> the case did not make it to the courts.
Ah. Sorry. I didn't express myself well enough.
I'm not saying that this case will set legal precedent.
I'm just giving an example to show that even if there is legal precedent
showing that common carriers are not liable, large publishers will
threaten and ISPs will bow.
> All that happened is a paranoid Time Warner Communications cut off a
> user's Internet access solely on the word of the MPAA. Based on an IP
> address, no less.
And with no regard to due process, he was treated as guilty until proven
innocent.
> And have I missed something? I was under the impression that the DMCA
> prohibits the use/dissemination of copyright circumvention technology.
> But fear of prosecution under the provisions the DMCA was touted as
> the reason T/W took the unfair action that it did.
The DMCA is huge, the anticircumvention law is just one part of it.
http://www.dfc.org/dfc1/pdfs/2281enrolled.pdf
It also contains "notice and take-down" procedures for ISPs. That is,
if an ISP is notified that illegal material is available on their
servers, they are exempt from contributory infringement if they take
reasonable steps to remove it. This is the law that forced SlashDot
to remove some scientology material posted in one of their weblogs.
I thought that it didn't cover material made available _through_ their
network (for example, on a webserver run by one of their cable/dsl
customers), but I have not looked closely at it.
Also note that the EU e-commerce directive contains similar
provisions, and has to be implemented in all member countries
before Jan 17 2002.
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/2000/en_300L0031.html
-- "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead.
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