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Re: Hold on to your news servers

  • From: Nathan J. Mehl
  • Date: Mon Nov 16 02:12:36 1998

In the immortal words of Chris Mauritz ([email protected]):
> 
> If Karl's latest windmill attack adversely affects anyone (via leaking
> cancels), I suspect folks will quickly find out who's feeding him and make
> it stop.  This will be about as effective as his empty threat to somehow get
> Playboy to punish folks who posted copyrighted images.  

Although Karl's involvement is highly debatable, Playboy Enterprises
International has and continues to send Cease and Desist letters and
file actual lawsuits against people posting their images on both Usenet
and the web.  Ditto Penthouse Productions, Flynt Publishing, IEG 
Entertainment and pretty much everybody else in the business.

The pissing and moaning about the CleanNews cancels getting leaked 
strikes me as a non-issue.  Most major news transit sites use Highwind's
Cyclone, which can filter out the CleanNews cancels before they get
sent to your site, often without you having to even contact your provider
if they're using the CGI interface.  And if things leak regardless, well,
the leaks will get plugged.  ClariNet has gotten used as an example of
the supposed impossibility of doing this, but last I checked they were
still in business...

If there is any actual operational relevance to this discussion, it is
this: does accepting a CleanNews feed actually, as Karl suggest, provide
any legal protection to the subscriber site when dealing with accusations
of transiting illegal or copyrighted material?  I strongly suspect that
the answer is "Not even slightly", and urge that ISP news administrators
talk long and hard with their corporate counsel before implementing this.
It is possible, depending on whether you present yourself as a carrier
service, that this could even increase your liability.  (IANAL, and really
all I'm sayin here is that neither is Karl, and you should talk to 
somebody who is.)

-n

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