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From: ldm@homxc.UUCP (L.MARCO)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal
Subject: Responsibility for postings.
Message-ID: <1544@homxc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Oct-87 08:56:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxc.1544
Posted: Mon Oct  5 08:56:34 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Oct-87 03:24:16 EDT
References: <378d6016.b8ab@apollo.uucp> <5261@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <2050@kitty.UUCP> <2071@kitty.UUCP>
Organization: Viola Lee's Blues
Lines: 28
Summary: This all sounds somehow familiar....
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1102 misc.legal:2979

In article <2071@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
> 
> [ " An admin/site is legally responsible for postings originating there " ]
> 	
> "Actionable libel requires (1) defamation, (2) identification, and (3)
> publication".  In the case of Usenet, only the SITE "publishes", not the
> author.  Most libel suits name only the publisher as a defendant
> [...]
> 1.	Your site and your organization IS responsible for Usenet articles 
> 	(and any consequential damages resulting therefrom) that your users 
> 	post.  You do agree, do you not, that your site has a problem if
> 	users start posting the contents of say, /usr/src/uts/vax/?  Well,

	Hmmm.... My reaction to this is "And just what state have *you*
passed the Bar in, Larry ? "  1/2 :-)  What's the legal definition of 
"publish", anyway ? I think that posting propietary source is different;
it's not supoosed to be left 0666, so there's a difference between that &&
someone's ideas, twisted as they may be...

	I suppose you might be able to make a case for AT&T being negligent
in letting mentally unstable individuals on the net, but you'd still have to 
prove that the posting originated here....  Then you'd have to prove that poster
actually posted it...  Then you'd have to prove that we could have prevented it
from happening...  Then you'd have to prove that what was said was a lie...

			 Haven't we been through this before ?

                                                Lou Marco