🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3veae0$suv@mercury.mcs.com>,
John A. LaCour III <jal@MCS.COM> wrote:
>In article <3v74jm$3ap@venus.mcs.com>, Karl Denninger <karl@MCS.COM> wrote:
>>We do not condone, nor enable willful and knowing copyright infringement 
>>or lawbreaking, nor do we wish to have the kind of customer on our service
>>who is interested in that kind of material.  
>>
>>MCSNet is a business which is interested in free discourse and collective
>>efforts on the net, but we stop where that effort crosses the line of known
>>illegal activity.
>
>As I mentioned in a previous post, this is not untested.  Prodigy
>lost a libel/defamation case due to their efforts at restricting material
>available on their service.

Wrong.  They have not lost.  Their motion for summary judgment was tossed
out.

>As I recall, a company sued Prodigy and a subscriber over malacious comments
>the individual made about the company.  Prodigy lost the case.  They have
>expert systems which effective sensor postings of users.  They also have
>staff which evaluate the "worthiness" of messages which users bring to their
>attention as being illegal, pornographic, etc.

All of which is alleged to be applied BEFORE the message is released to 
other users.

That is, if you post on Prodigy, the claim is that they evaluate the posting 
BEFORE they allow it to actually be made.  That is called prior restraint, 
and it makes you an editor of the content your users post.

NO ISP IN THE BUSINESS DOES THIS to the best of my knowledge.  The situation
at MCSNet is not even close to analagous.

Your, and many other people's contention, that refusing to carry groups of
content which are objectionable for *any* reason (space consumption, images,
stolen material, erotic material, etc) makes one liable for the remaining
groups of content is exactly analagous to saying that because a bookstore
refuses to sell HUSTLER that it would be liable if PLAYBOY (which it does
carry) printed something which was obscene.

That's not how it works, and the contention is ludicrous on its face.

Prior restraint is the problem which Prodigy had, and they haven't lost yet.
In fact, they claimed in their response to the lawsuit that, at the time of
the alleged act, they were no longer practicing this.  However, the judge
ruled that due to their *prior* use of this technique the issue of whether
or not they did still have this system in place at that time was a matter of
fact to be tried in court, rather than accepted on its face, and ruled
against the motion.

The case in question is still pending.

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