Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watdaisy.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watdaisy!ndiamond
From: ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Publisher or carrier
Message-ID: <6741@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Nov-84 13:43:26 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.6741
Posted: Fri Nov 16 13:43:26 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Nov-84 03:30:17 EST
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 21

If I "borrow" the use of my employer's photocopier, does that make
them a publisher or a carrier?
Suppose I "borrow" the use of their VCR, which they intend only for
marketing and training demonstrations, but I make many copies of a
tape and mail the copies to others.  Are they a publisher?
Telephone transmissions can be decoded by anyone with the necessary
equipment.  Does this make a phone company a publisher?

Traditionally the publisher has been the person who decides that a
message should be widely distributed.  The person with the printing
press only sells his/her services to the publisher.

If a bulletin board's sysop is regarded as a publisher, there will
be gigantic ramifications in other industries as well.


-- Norman Diamond

UUCP:  {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdaisy!ndiamond
CSNET: ndiamond%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet
ARPA:  ndiamond%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa