NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/alt/comp/acadfre/talk/2590

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-14 | 1.8 KB

Xref: sparky alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:2590 misc.legal:16015 alt.censorship:6955
Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!swrinde!gatech!news.byu.edu!news
From: [e-mail] (Jamie Gritton)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,misc.legal,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Groups used to distribute illegal material
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 14 Aug 92 15:31:48 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
    <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Brigham Young University, Provo UT USA
Lines: 23
Nntp-Posting-Host: alaska.et.byu.edu

[e-mail] (Bjorn Fahller) writes:

> It's not the newsgroup that's at fault...
> No one (I think) would carry the idea of closing
> a road because people drive too fast, or would anyone?

   The road analogy breaks down when you think of nearly everybody
driving 100mph down a residential street. It's my understanding that
the alt.binaries.pictures.* groups carry mostly copyrighted images,
with a very slim majority in the public domain or owned by the
posters. For example the Playboy etc. scans in a.b.p.erotica and the
continual stream of scanned album covers in a.b.p.misc.
   The issue here isn't that of carrying a mostly non-copyrighted
Usenet with the occasional violation. The text groups are like that
(containing a few lifted "real" news articles). The issue here is
choosing to carry a set of groups that are known to consist largely of
copyright violations. True, you cant *know* that future articles in
a.b.p.* are going to be mostly copyrighted, but it doesn't take a
genius to guess that they will.
   In short, you can substantially reduce the illegal articles on your
server by not carrying these groups.
--
James Gritton - [e-mail] - I disclaim