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1994-08-01
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Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!sundog.tiac.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.world.net!news.teleport.com!ip-cd.teleport.com!vx
From: vx@teleport.com (V-X)
Newsgroups: alt.games.doom
Subject: Re: Oh have you heard? (the sorry state of software suits)
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 23:46:11 +1000
Organization: Fragile Liquid
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <vx.630.006CBFE5@teleport.com>
References: <1994Jul27.153556.15309@martha.utcc.utk.edu> <316isd$5ac@search01.news.aol.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ip-c12.teleport.com
X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B]
In article <316isd$5ac@search01.news.aol.com> doomofman@aol.com (Doomofman)
writes:
>Who can do anything? I joined the EFF, but they are getting to be
>a divisive bunch of squabblers. Some high-profile lawyers are
>actually trying to defend that MIT-guy's piracy on constitutional
>freedom grounds.
I'm as law and order as the next guy (probably more so), but you perception of
the MIT case is slightly off--what he is being defended for is NOT piracy, but
the operation of a site where people deposited pirated software. If he
encouraged this, then I say off with his head, but the way the law stands now,
he's liable for what people put on his site whether he knew about it or not,
and that's wrong. People have gotten their whole lives turned upside down
over this kind of nonsense, people who didn't do anything but operate a BBS
where someone deposited something, and it was there when the cops checked.
The actual owners/depositors of the info are often ignored--"small
fish"--while the potentially innocent operators are publicly raided, arrested
and thrown all over the local and national media as some kind of
cyberspace-equivalent of drug lords.
That's what the lawyers are fighting for--even if the guy knew about the
bootlegs and encouraged their distribution, the state has to prove this. Just
saying "It was there, it was his site," shouldn't be good enough.
_______________________________________________________________________________
V-X lives in Portland, OR which is full of sunny happy places, the sunniest of
which is Teleport, the organization that provides him with Internet access. V-X
has nothing to do with Teleport, outside of a check he sends four times a year.
You'll probably blame them anyway, though. Don't do it, man, just don't do it.