🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3ve9m3$rn4@mercury.mcs.com>,
John A. LaCour III <jal@MCS.COM> wrote:
>Interestingly, Prodigy recently lost a case because they were conscious
>making decisions about what sort of information, messages, etc. would be
>allowed on their system.

Wrong.

Prodigy has not YET lost that case.  Their motion for summary judgment was
tossed out *because they practice prior restraint*.

That is, they look at the material you post *before* it is made available,
and judge on an individual basis, post-by-post, whether or not to release
it. 

That makes them a publisher in the eyes of the court.

I know of *NO* ISP which actually does this.

>Should Karl fail to prohibit any legally questionable material, he may end
>up liable on the grounds that MCS actively judges what material is allowed
>and isn't.  Compuserve on the otherhand has received some sort of status
>analagous to a common carrier.

Nope.

CompuServe does what we do -- they DO remove postings that in their
opinion violate the law or their idea of good taste, after the fact and
after notification.  

This did not affect them in Cubby .vs. CompuServe, which they won, in no
small part because they do not practice prior restraint and given their
system it is impossible for them to have constructively known about the 
content in question at the time of the alleged "offense".

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