mista weava

how can groups of people - police, beckhams lawyers etc possibly check loads of bbs'? it must be an impossible task.

BTW i am a technical fool - if this is a stupid question do say

weava

chiark

I was taking the p1ss

Mice_Elf

Never heard of Bugs? They weasel about the servers checking for slanderous content and then report back...

mista weava

chiark - i am a fool!

mice - thats dark....

weava

Tommy 2000

The FBI run programs to search for certain words being transmitted across the net...eg bomb, conspiracy, hijack, subaru!

mista weava

bomb, bomb, bomb,

conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy

subaru, subaru, subaru.

you out there mother fukcers?!

weava

chiark

There is a more serious side to my urine extraction tho. If someone did alert someone who had a grievance after reading something on scoobynet, and we (the mods) failed to act, ultimately we believe on good legal advice that the board could be liable for something.

This has been proven before in a test case of a slightly different nature (Godfrey vs Demon) but it means that we're by and large erring on the side of caution as Scoobynet could not afford to mount an expensive legal defense.

Sad, really, but at the moment, until a test case goes the other way, it's the way it's got to be.

Incidentally, things are worse in the states. Fatwallet, a site that publishes information on up-coming sales prices, has recently been forced to remove advance pricing information on Walmart on the grounds that...

...wait for it...

...prices are copyright, and therefore subject to the DCMA.

Fatwallet didn't have the lawyers to fight Walmart, so took the posts down.

Then walmart demanded that Fatwallet make available all information that they had to assist in tracking down the publisher of the original infomation.

Fat wallet snapped, and counter-sued for misinterpretation of the DCMA.

Result? Walmart backed down

A nice story, and we can but hope that the UK has a similar precendent set that applies to us. Note that this applies to the DCMA, and the EU is about to implement a directive with similar intentions. It stinks...

philc

there was a really neat site called 'www.priceless.com', but a certain credit card company took exception to the site and letters from lawyers started arriving.

Can't say that the credit card company stood a snowball's chance of copyrighting a common phrase, but the web developer has not got the wherewithal to fight a court case.

The site is still there, but severely emasculated.

So, I take the Moderator's view - unless you've got loads of spare cash, or run a magazine called Private Eye, it's best to err on the side of caution.

(written for the benefit of all those reading this post at GCHQ )

NotoriousREV

I'm sick of seeing the (Godfrey vs Demon) case totally misused. That case centred around Demon (as the ISP and server owner) failing to act when approached by Godfrey. All the case says is that as the publisher, they should have acted to remove defamatory material from their web server once asked to by the injured party but no mention was made of ISP needing to act BEFORE complaints are made, therefore, IMHO, the policy is a little on the strict side here.

I'm Tech. Manager of an (anti-censorship) ISP so I do know what I'm talking about

Eagle7

I'm in agreement with Rev here. I think the point of that case is that demon did not act, after having been made aware of the defamatory material and explicitly asked by the defamed party.

This is very different to things that are posted on a board which is effectively a free for all. i.e If someone put graffiti on my garden wall making defamatory comments about my neighbour, I wouldn't expect my neighbour to sue me! However, if he asked me to remove it and I didn't then there would be a case.

remember too that the DCMA and US law can work out quite differently to UK law (in the actual courts).

JamieMacdonald

The priceless site is back up!

www.come.to/priceless

Here's a little taster :

Chris L

Rev is right. However, we are not in the position to fight this should someone want to use us as a test case.

It isn't Chiark's or my **** on the line - it's Simon's. Simon as webmaster is the guide for all moderating. If he feels we've overstepped he'll tell us.

I would also agree that our policy is not going to be liked by everyone, nor would some people consider it to be necessary (we feel it is). Events in the past have probably made us a little more paranoid, but we are still here!

It must be understood that the editing or deleting of posts really is a last resort. It is normally only done after some discussion between moderators (unless immeadiate action is required). In most cases we would try to contact the poster and ask them to edit the posts themselves.

Our aim is to have as little input as possible. We want people to be able to post their thoughts and views without interference. Sadly this isn't always possible.

Chris

Andrewza

The Godfrey/Demon thing wasn't web pages, but newsgroup articles, which is slightly different and if you know anything about how they work you'll know why it's more complicated removing something on someone's whim than a simple webpage.