bug-gne
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Bug-gne]the problem of illegal content vs. freedom


From: hooker
Subject: Re: [Bug-gne]the problem of illegal content vs. freedom
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 07:25:01 +0800

Tom wrote:
> Alex,
> 
> I see your point about mirroring. Some people would
> say "Oh simply keep contentious articles in countries
> where they aren't illegal!". The problem with that is
> linking to them... what if that one mirror goes down
> for instance, or moves? We would need some very well
> designed tracking systems to ensure that we don't face
> many potential problems with each mirror holding
> different information.

Actually, it doesn't help the issue at all. In many countries it's the
*possession* of illegal material which constitutes the offense, and, in the
UK for example, there have already been instances of successful prosecution
based on the individual displaying images on their PC when the images
originated on a web server in another country. Saying that US law isn't
like that isn't helpful here.  GNE is designed to be a truely international
resource and the difficulties experienced by users in countries other than
the US have to be taken seriously. Perhaps some general warning "some
content in this archive may be illegal in your country" is a first step.

> Yes ideologies will be very important, but we have to
> work out some way of allowing every view possible. To
> start with GNE will be hosted with GNU, so in the US I
> assume, so we should get away with many contentious
> issues but not all of them. The only thing I can
> suggest is that some people get down to writing some
> sort of perl script that would manage the problem of
> mirrors holding different info, and of perhaps an
> article only being held on one mirror. We'd then have
> to hope we always had a mirror on which articles could
> be stored. We'd also have to ask author's to tell us
> if they think their article could be illegal in some
> places, so we could store it with care and avoid any
> future problems.
> 
> As nice as it would be to blatantly refuse not to obey
> US Law, I think we might get more than we bargained
> for if we did!

And people in other countries will have similar issues if *they* ignore
their own laws.

It's an area where GNE has to tread very carefully (IMHO of course), and
should come up with an approach which is practical, and for which we get
general agreement from the people on this mailing list in the first
instance.

You know the *real* difficulty here?  Keeping track of what's illegal
where, and associating this with a growing set of articles.  For the sake
of the users of GNE, the project has to make a serious attempt to do this
properly.

Paul




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]