Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!evan
From: evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Covering the net's behind
Message-ID: <518@telly.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 89 03:04:49 GMT
Lines: 118


Anyone who has categorized the r.h.f. debate as 'Brad bashers' versus
'Brad boosters' has totally missed the point.

So far nobody here has criticized Brad's ability to accomplish his basic
intent - to moderate a newsgroup which was, for the most part, funny.

There have been many critics of the particular steps Brad took. Some
have called for votes to remove him. Others have rallied to his defence,
treating criticism of Brad's tactics as personal attack.

The issue Brad raised is real. But let's deal with it broadly, as a
problem which can affect ANY newsgroup. I've been in e-mail contact
with one moderator since this started, who personlly has genuine fears
about legal attacks - libel, pornography, even passing state secrets.

It would strike me that being sued by a corporation which has been
slammed on the net, or prosecuted by the father of a 12-year-old caught
reading alt.sex, would be even less pleasant than what Brad had to
suffer. And all the 'read at your own risk' messages in the world would
not necessarily keep this from happening. Keeping certain groups off
'revenue-producing' sites won't prevent it, either.

I suggest that it would be far more productive for the net to implement
*protective* measures, than to tackle individual problems as they occur.
To this end, I would like to suggest the following:

I believe that the net should draft and approve (by vote) a document to
be signed and/or agreed-to by every user reading news. The document would
be kept on file by the site granting the news-reading account.

This document, written in clear English but valid in court, would include
the following provisions, applicable for ALL newsgroups;

- Liability for all postings rests with the author ALONE. Sites and
  individuals (moderators) involved in the distribution process assume NO
  responsibility for the content of any postings, including (but not
  limited to) any losses arising from the attempted use of software
  (in source or binary form) distributed over the net;

- Full notice that some postings may be considered offensive on ethnic,
  sexual or other grounds. Though people posting such content may try to
  warn of this by using subject lines or encryption, no guarantees are
  provided regarding the reliability of such warnings (or lack thereof);

- Though authors may explicitly claim various legal rights to their work,
  they alone are responsible for enforcing such rights.

- Anything posted on the network is assumed to have the author's consent
  for unlimited electronic distribution. No author may restrict the
  availability of a posting beyond the normal distribution for the
  appropriate newsgroup.

- An individual's right to read Usenet news is a privilege, not a right,
  and may be revoked at any time.

By now I hope you understand what I'm getting at. This document offers
a number of comforts and legal defences to the net and its elements:

- Warning, BEFORE THE FACT, that the net contains naughty bits;

- Protection for all sites along the way, plus moderators, if another
  net reader has a complaint about a specific posting;

- Notice to posters that they, *and they alone*, may be held liable for
  what they submit to the net. (This may help stop some of the worst
  postings from ever getting sent). Individual postings may claim
  rights or deny liabilities over and above what's covered above;

- No other changes to net etiquette, software, or procedures are needed.
  No site has to ask permission for anything, an nobody has to worry
  about whether or not they're allowed to feed something to another site.

As you may notice, none of this mentions anything to do with 'making
money off the net', and that is deliberate.

The above document would leave anybody to declare any kind of copyright,
trade secret or whatever in their postings, as long as they understand
that they can't restrict the distribution of their work.

I would suggest that any organization which *would* want to restrict
redistribution of postings (including real commercial sites like BIX
and CIS) would find Usenet unacceptable, and would be unable to
adhere to the spirit of this document.

One of the REAL benefits of this scheme is that it need not even be
universally accepted! Let's say many sites implement this document
but, say, MIT refuses. A student there sees an offensive posting in
a moderated group and complains. The "defendants" (legal or otherwise)
can point to the document as a good-faith attempt to deal with this
problem, and some of the blame would fall on MIT. (Some blame would
come to them, even without the document.)

I understand that the greatest problem in making this work is the
huge number of people already reading the net, and the bureaucratic
headaches of administering it. Even if it's not made retroactive,
and just new users had to comply, it would still be a step forward.
Most sites have a local group which almost everyone subscribes to,
in which notices of this type can be made for existing readers.
Or send them mail. Whatever...

Anyway, enough hot air for now. I would suggest a netwide effort in
drafting the document, a vote on the final wording, and then its
regular broadcast in news.announce.newusers. If the idea is rejected,
I will draft it myself, implement it unilaterally for all users on
this site, and make it available to anyone who wants it.

Thanks for reading this far. I realize the subject may be getting
tiresome. But I, like Brad, believe it needs to be addressed.

PS. Yes, there are elements of this that are borrowed from many
previous postings, including Brad's original policies. All are
recognized and appreciated.
-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Evan Leibovitch, SA of System Telly, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
             evan@telly.on.ca / {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!telly!evan
You can lead a fish to water, but you have to walk really fast or he'll die