Re: [Bug-gne]External Servers and Illegal/Extreme Content

[Bob Dodd]

--- Imran Ghory <address@hidden> wrote:
[snip]
> > (2) If we do offer up external links to sources of illegal
> material,
> > then we could ourselves be acting illegally. Especially since we
> know
> > why we are offering the link.
> 
> Linking to illegal content could just mean that that the linking
> article 
> has to be on a third party server itself. 

It's the "knowingly" bit that worries me. Presumably we know/have seen
the content, that's why we're choosing the server carefully, so we are
knowingly setting up a backdoor to allowing that material to be viewed
with GNE. Ok we may be applying a level of indirection, but we are
doing so in order to allow global access, including to the countries
where the material is illegal. Say that country was France and we have
(an etirely legal) mirror there, I worry that french law would see us
as conspiring to break the law, and they could go after the owners of
the mirror, or whoever they consider "runs" GNE. We can't even plead
thee Yahoo argument that we aren't responsible for content: we are, and
we saw the material we made available. Maybe there is a way to do this,
but I think I'd want a small army of lawyers picking over the bones
first.
 
> > (3) If the external server _is_ a GNE server (but not a GNU one)
> then
> > we could still stand accused of hosting extremist propoganda.
> Whilst it
> > wouldn't be on GNU hardware, it is still a GNU project, and RMS may
> be
> > seriously unhappy for the FSF to become involved in such hosting.
> 
> Do the Apache group get blamed for such material, do ISC get 
> blamed for such material ?


As far as I'm aware, Apache doesn't provide content. 
We do. 
GNE provides content.
It's the content providers who get into trouble over illegal material.


> The software would be GNU controled by but the individual servers 
> won't be, after all as RMS said on the annoucement, we need a 
> distributed system to stop one group gaining overall control of the 
> project. No one should be able to have singular control in the long 
> term and that includes the FSF.

Currently this _is_ a GNU project, and will be using GNU servers to
provide content. This is even more clear when you look at how decisions
are made on the project. From a legal point of view, it's difficult to
see who else, other than GNU, is responsible for storage, policing, and
distribution of content.

/Bob Dodd
 


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