At 08:12 PM 7/12/99 -0700, you wrote:
>At 05:01 PM 7/12/99 -0400, Martin B. Schwimmer wrote:
No I didn't, ICANN's counsel wrote the long passage you quoted.
>
[snip]
Bill Lovell:
>As to that, I was privileged to hear a description by an NSI attorney
>in the Lockheed Martin v. Network Solutions case at the Ninth
>Circuit, wherein it was said in effect that such compilations "are
>untouched by human hands," more or less, hence NSI cannot be held
>legally responsible for the content thereof (I should maybe shoot
>myself for siding with NSI and saying so, but I personally believe
>that the argument is correct). But again, if one cannot be held legally
>responsible for any content in a data base, how can one claim a
>copyright in it? You would claim the whole pile while absolving
>yourself for liability for its bits and pieces? Maybe so, but I believe
>you existing or wannabe registrars cannot have it both ways.
>
Your point about the contradiction of this argument as far as IP ownership
is well-taken, however as for the point about "untouched by human hands"
being a defense against liability, if this is what NSI's attorney said,
then it appears to be factually incorrect, as NSI does touch the data when
it filters the name for content, i.e. seven dirty words.
As for the legal correctness of the argument, it was this type of software
filtering that torpedoed Prodigy's argument that it shouldn't be held
liable for the contents of its bulletin boards because the content was
"untouched" by Prodigy's hands.
>
