At 5:58 PM -0700 8/18/98, James C. Armstrong wrote:
> I maintain some lists for professional sports teams in the UK. I run
> these lists in California. (Rangers football club, Scottish football)
> Some members of the lists have occasionally posted copyrighted
> material. My intro statement for members strongly discourages this,
> but I do not manually approve all postings, nor do I attempt to
> censor after the fact.
My intro statement doesn't discourage it -- it says "don't. Period".
(in more words than that, but that's the effect). When people do do it,
I post to the list telling people not to, and refer to the rules. The
rules specifically say that repeat offenders will be kicked off the
list.
> One of the publishers has recently requested that I stop all copyrighted
> material from going to the list, with the veiled threat of criminal
> action.
And that's why. Mistakes happen. But if you allow them to happen,
you're responsible for them. And if you don't stop them, you're party
to the infringement. You have every right to say "no. period", because
what they're doing is illegal, can get everyone involved sued, and the
list shut down.
> I don't want to moderate the list, I do not have the time. So, I
> can't effectively prevent the list members from posting, I can only
> retroactively unsubscribe them (but does such a retroactive unsubscribe
> open me up for any legal liability? I'd be censoring list members,
> and isn't this similar to what Prodigy did?)
Tell them to stop, and if they don't, nuke them.
Retroactively unsubscribing opens you up to a lot LESS legal liability
than allowing content piracy does. think about that one... If your
rules make it clear it's against the rules, and they break the rules,
what grounds do they have to complain?
--
Chuq Von Rospach (Hockey fan? <http://www.plaidworks.com/hockey/>)
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
<http://www.plaidworks.com/> + <http://www.lists.apple.com/>
