🚀 go-pugleaf

[This may not have made it out last time.  Apologies if this is a
duplicate. -- Prentiss Riddle, moderator]

  
Press Release  
Revised November 21st, 1994

  
                        CYBERSPACE AND THE LAW :
               YOUR RIGHTS AND DUTIES IN THE ONLINE WORLD
  
          "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse. It's dangerous"


                 An EFF-Austin Sysop Liability Workshop
  
                         Saturday, December 3rd
                      Austin Technology Incubator
             8920 Business Park Drive (off Jollyville Road)
                           1:00 to 6:00 p.m.

  
                               PANELISTS
  
Ed Cavazos      Attorney with the Houston Law firm of Andrews & Kurth.
                He is a sysop, the co-author of the book "Cyberspace
                and the Law: Your Rights and Duties in the On-Line World"
                (MIT Press 1994), represents Internet access providers,
                and is a frequent speaker on the legal issues facing
                system operators. Cavazos sits on the Board of Directors
                of EF-Houston.  [ecavazos@blkbox.com].

Mike Godwin     Online Counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
                Mr. Godwin has authored scores of articles on civil
                liberties in cyberspace and has been an avid participant
                in the evolution of these issues through his active role
                as a speaker and advocate. He is probably quoted in more
                media articles about cyberspace and the law than any
                other individual.

Pete Kennedy    Pete Kennedy is an attorney with the Austin law firm of
                George, Donaldson & Ford. He successfully represented
                Steve Jackson Games and others in their lawsuit against
                the US Secret Service based on the government's illegal
                seizure of private e-mail on the Illuminati BBS. He
                co-edits the quarterly publication _Legalbytes_ and is a
                frequent contributor to Boardwatch Magazine.
                [pkennedy@io.com]

Steve Ryan      Steve Ryan is a frequent speaker and commentator on
                computer law and the computer underground, and
                represents Houston commercial sysops as a member of the
                Law Office of Howard Nations.  [sryan@io.com]

Gary Kissiah    Gary Kissiah is the author of _How to Avoid Being A
                Squished Cat on the Information Highway_ about liability
                issues.  He is an attorney for the high tech law firm of
                Small, Craig & Werkenthin. [delmar@well.sf.ca.us].


                             TOPICS
  
Topics scheduled for coverage include :  
  
     * E-mail privacy - The Electronic Communications Privacy Act
 
     * BBS management -- user contracts, logon disclaimers  

     * Changes in state and federal laws regarding computer crime
 
     * Sexual materials -- obscenity, access to minors  
 
     * Self-defense for sysops : what steps to take to protect 
          yourself.


  
         A COUPLE OF REASONS WHY THESE WORKSHOPS ARE NECESSARY


The Amateur Action BBS -- a BBS in California is charged and 
convicted with violating the community standards and obscenity 
statutes in Tennessee federal court.  The sysops face sentencing 
that totals 110 years in jail.  
  
Tony Davis buys an adult CD-Rom out of the back of a nationally  
distributed magazine and resells copies to his Oklahoma City  
users.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands of copies of this CD-Rom  
have been sold, yet the police bust down his door (with the  
evening news cameraman just two steps behind). A jury convicts  
Tony of violating obscenity statutes and sentence him to a total 
of 35 years in jail.  
  
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v George Frena.  Playboy sues George 
Frena in civil court for distributing .gif files of copyrighted 
Playboy models, even though his users were uploading and 
downloading images without his knowledge. It doesn't matter 
whether the sysop knew or not, the court says, and awards Playboy
$110,000 in damages.  [George Frena was also arrested last week 
for criminal obscenity charges in Florida criminal court]. 
 
Texas BBS systems are routinely raided.  Charges of software  
piracy brought down the Alpha 2010 BBS in McAllen, the User-to-  
User BBS in Coppell, and the Agents of Fortune in Vidor.   
Operation Longarm netted at least two bulletin board systems for 
child pornography.  These are just the systems we know about, as 
law enforcement officials work freely behind a "wall of silence" 
that prevents monitoring of their efforts. 
 
Because one of their users is accused of posting a defamatory 
message on one of their message bases, Prodigy has just been 
slapped with a $100 million dollar libel lawsuit. As owner
and moderator of the message base, Prodigy is being held 
accountable for the actions of their users.  
 
Ignorance of the law is no excuse; it is dangerous.

We don't want you to be next.

We're tired of having so many Texas-based "test cases" and are more
than willing to let other states have their share.

So we've put together this sysop liability workshop to inform
users about the scope and realm of the laws in cyberspace.
 
PRE-SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS  
 
One improvement over our previous Workshop is the ability to pre-
submit questions before the event.  These questions will be 
forwarded to the appropriate speaker so that they can prepare 
their materials knowing what it is that you want to know.  We 
will also track these questions to ensure that they have been 
adequately addressed. 
 
Send e-mail to EFF-Austin President David Smith (bladex@bga.com, 
WWIVNet 1@15115, WWIVLink 1@5273) or leave a message on the EFF- 
Austin Information Hotline at 465-7871. 
 
  
PROCEEDINGS 
 
EFF-Austin is in the process of creating a special themed "Info 
Disk" of text files concerning sysop liability issues that will 
be made available at the conference for $3 as well as posted on 
our Gopher & FTP sites.  
 
Attendees can also receive a free copy of the EFF-Austin "Warning
Label" to place on your BBS which warns law enforcement officals 
about those laws which protect your computer equipment from 
government search and seizure.   
 
Ed Cavazos and Gavino Morin's book, "Cyberspace and the Law : 
Your Rights and Duties in the Online World" December 1994, MIT 
Press, will be available for sale for $19.95, with EFF-Austin 
members receiving a 20% discount. 

There is no fee for attending the workshop, and you do not need
to be a member of EFF-Austin to attend.
 
 
DIRECTIONS TO THE AUSTIN TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR 

                  Austin Technology Incubator 
         8920 Business Park Drive (off Jollyville Road) 
  
 
Take MoPac North* and exit on Steck. Turn left on Steck until you
hit Mesa Road. At Mesa, turn right. Take another right at
Jollyville Road. 
  
[*NOTE: The Steck exit is SOUTH if you're coming from far North,
i.e. the Research Blvd. (183) intersection or beyond. Then you
would take MoPac South and, when you exit, turn *right* on
Steck.] 
  
The next right on Jollyville is Business Park Drive. The ATI is a
grey building (three story) and is located behind the Holiday
Inn.  There should be some signs to help you find your way to the
meeting site. 

ABOUT EFF-AUSTIN
  
EFF-Austin is a local grass roots organization devoted to 
exploring the issues of civil liberties in cyberspace. Since the
summer of 1991 we have served Austin as a local interface to the
national issues, producing quarterly Public Forums as well as
social networking Cyberdawgs.  We have about 125 members. Dues
are $10 a year / $5 a year for students.  

CONTACT INFO 
 
If you are still reading this far into the announcement, and 
still have unanswered questions, please feel free to contact
EFF-Austin President David Smith via e-mail at bladex@bga.com or 
leave a message on the Information Hotline (465-7871).