Posted By: BalmainBoy on: 12/07/2000 17:19:54 MSTSubject: RE: Dot Comedy premiere
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Posted By: BalmainBoy on: 12/07/2000 17:19:54 MST Subject: RE: Dot Comedy premiere |
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It's a worrying trend (here in Australia as well as the US) that ISP providors are increasingly being held resposible for the content of the data transmitted or stored by their users. Logically, their legal position should be the same as the owner of a mini-storage depot (make the customer sign a declaration that they will use the premises for legal and non-dangerous uses, monitor access movements, call the police and delete the access once the owner finds out the rules are broken). Illogically, they are being prosecuted because they gave someone the ability to access information that is banned locally, but legal elsewhere. An equivalent is prosecuting a building owner for leaving a blank wall accessible to passers-by to write racist graffiti on it. *climb down off soapbox* Thinking about your site, DotComedy are viewing it like a visitors' book in your front hall, that people can write in as they pass through. At any time, you can put the book away and assert your ownership of the paper and ink. But could you pass off anything written in it as yours? My response would be, not for commercial gain. That would infringe the spirit, if not the letter, of copyright We give you an (implied) license to keep a copy of our words on your webpage. You could obtain a similar license from Stephen King to have a page from one of his novels as a webpage. He, or his publishers, have the resources to legally challenge you if you published this as your own work. We dont. But the absence of money does not diminish the morality of our case. Therefore, since we haven't filled out an e-form of conditions for using your site, ownership is not transferred.
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