On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, at 12:00 PM, Onno Benschop wrote:
On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 11:35, Matthew Healey wrote:
On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, at 10:57 AM, Shay Telfer wrote:
On Wed, 2003-04-30 at 10:43, Onno Benschop wrote:
While I understand that this is a really big and grey area, I do
feel
that this is an important distinction; important enough for me to
risk
being bombarded by email in response.
There are lots of 'indie', free, or public domain materials available
via peer-to-peer, so there's not necessarily any dubious moral or
legal issues.
This is what I was referring to. The original poster didn't specify
exactly what he was downloading, only that it was downloading slowly.
Seeing as our legal system works on the principle of "innocent until
proven guilty" I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I am *attempting* to highlight that it *may* be illegal, and that the
person should make themselves aware of the issues.
My apologies. I assumed you were implying that what the original poster
was doing is illegal.
Don't we as a community (or as IT professionals) have a responsibility
to at least point this out, or am I missing something?
IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer)
Yes we have a moral responsibility to do that, but we have to be
careful so as not to require a legal responsibility. The last thing we
want is for WAMUG to be held legally responsible for the actions of
people on this list. As such, we have to be careful to retain some form
of "common carrier" status. This means that if we start pointing out
legalities such as "it's illegal to pirate copyrighted music" on a
formal basis, we can be held liable things we don't point out that are
also illegal. (This is in the same way that if an ISP starts filtering
illegal content, it can be held liable for content that slips through
the filter.)
You will note that Apple says "Don't Steal Music" on the iPod. It
doesn't say "It Is Illegal To Pirate Copyrighted Material")
IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer)
- Matt
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Matt Healey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
