Xref: utzoo alt.config:3508 news.admin:11794 comp.org.eff.talk:1144 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!kadie From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) Newsgroups: alt.config,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Anonymous postings Message-ID: <1991Jan10.163334.7654@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 10 Jan 91 16:33:34 GMT References: <1991Jan7.190403.9267@alphalpha.com> <1991Jan09.175609.6303@looking.on.ca> <40305@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 50 The ACLU handbook on the rights of authors and artists offers this information: "Who can sued in a libel or privacy case? The original writer or creator is always directly answerable, much as the driver of a delivery truck is answerable for any accident. The employer of the writer, if any, is also answerable, like the employer of a driver. The publisher/broadcaster of the work may also be answerable, even if the writer is a free-lance contributor; and individual editors, producers, and collaborators who participate in the creation of a work may also be held answerable [187]. It occasionally happens that a plaintiff sues the printer of a work, its distributor and/or retailer, even the advertisers who have sponsored it. However, because of the Supreme Court's decision in the Getz case requiring plaintiffs to prove that libelous statements have been published with fault on the part of the defendant, it seems unlikely that tangential defendants will be found liable [188]. ------ [187] For a complex but important recent discussion of the potential defamation liability of the persons and entities in the publishing process -- original newspaper publishers vs. paperback (re)publishers, original reports vs. paperback editor, etc -- see Karaduman v. Newsday, 51 N.Y.2d 531 (1980) [188] See, e.g., Maynard v. Port Publications, Inc., 98 Wis.2d 555, 297, N.W.2d 500(1980] ------- " I think a Usenet BBS owner is more like a conventional printer or distributor than like a conventional publisher. Like a [conventional] printer and distributor, the BBS owner doesn't necessarily read the material, but he or she knows where the material comes from. Or to use Brad Templeton's terminology, conventional printing and distribution is a unmonitored, nonanonymous system. [The quote is from _The Rights of Authors and Artists: Comprehensive and Up-to-Date, A Basic Guide to the Legal Rights of Authors and Artists_ (An American Civil Liberties Union Handbook), 1983, by Kenneth P. Norwick & Jerry Simon Chasen with Henry R. Kaufman] -- Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Fourth Amendment (War-on-Drugs version): The right of the people to be secure in their persons shall not be violated but upon probable cause *or for random urine tests*