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From: webber@klinzhai.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber)
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: I am not a lawyer, but a lawyer isn't a computer scientist either
Message-ID: <205@brandx.klinzhai.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 28-Apr-87 05:14:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.205
Posted: Tue Apr 28 05:14:45 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Apr-87 05:40:28 EDT
References: <965@vortex.UUCP> <7946@utzoo.UUCP> <7947@utzoo.UUCP> <7967@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 50
Summary: catching all the legal objections in one message

In article <7967@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> Unfortunately, there *is* a legal reason to do it:  real, true broadcasts
> and point-to-point phone calls are *not* identical in the eyes of the law.
> There is a lot of uncertainty as to just how Stargate would be treated if
> it came to a court case, but it resembles a radio broadcast a whole lot
> more than it resembles a phone system.

If the basis for treating a phone call differently is that the phone call
is expected to be private, then there is certainly no relevance to
phone calls with 1000's of people on both end.  With many calls going
over microwave these days, it would be interesting to know on what
other basis one would invoke phone law for Usenet and not for Stargate.

> To the extent that your argument holds water at all, what it shows is that
> our current scheme is legally dubious:  if what we are doing is truly
> broadcasting, then laws about libel etc. most assuredly do apply, and the
> only thing that saves us is the lack of any central organization to be sued.

Actually, something else protects us.  There is no way you could ever
establish a chain of evidence connecting me to the message appearing
on your screen now.  The sooner lawyers realize that computers are
part of a world that has nothing to do with their world, the better
for all concerned.

> ...                   The people behind Stargate evidently don't consider
> either their necks or Stargate's to be expendable.

Well, I hardly consider Stargate indispensable.  Particularly if it
buys Usenet more legal trouble than it had before.  So far it seems to
want to evade responsibility by setting up moderators to be clay
pigeons (with obvious responsibility for what they forward).  Also it
will expose Usenet to the beancounters by forcing people to enter into
contractual relations with Stargate in order to benefit from its existance.
It is even messing up the technical groups: what will become of all the
sources posted on the condition that no commericial use is made of
them?  One would think that Stargate is benefitting commericially from
anything it broadcasts.

> I would expect that Stargate would eventually have paid legal counsel, by
> the way.  See above comments on central organizations:  any visible central
> point is just asking for lawsuits, and does have to be prepared for the
> possibility.

Certainly the need to hire lawyers is a great reason to avoid
centralized control.

----------------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!topaz!webber)

  The law has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of.
                           (corruption of a saying of Blaise Pascal)