I was reading through a new PR book and this is what it said about copyrighted material online..

(I am not breaking copyright rules by posting this BTW.. Just under the legal limit. woo hoo)

The Liability of Online Services:
This issue has not yet fully tested in the courts. One federal judge in CA ruled that Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc. could be held liable for "contributory copyright infringment" because it failed to stop a subscriber from posting the Church Of Scientology's copyrighted text's online.

Now to me that is pretty scary. According to this court case we are responsible for our customers actions no matter what... I also know another crappy rule is that if someone is commiting a felony (or perhaps a misd. not sure) the authorities can actually conviscate the server.. How crappy is that? Have your customers call in: WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SITE?? .. "Uhh, well the Feds took all of our servers and backups"..

We need to start some type of lobby or something I personally think. Get 20-30 different web hosting companies together and pay ~$700-$1000 / mo each for someone to represent us in Washington. ACLU is good but I don't think their main goal is the corporations .. just the people who work for them...

Is there already something like this I can take part in?

You may want to check out The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org). They seem more interested in protecting individual rights, but they are currently involved in a case to protect an ISP -- link: http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/AlsScan_v_RemarQ/

Originally posted by jic
Get 20-30 different web hosting companies together and pay ~$700-$1000 / mo each for someone to represent us in Washington. ACLU is good but I don't think their main goal is the corporations .. just the people who work for them...


For that monthly fee i can get a very good lawyer myself!

Originally posted by jic
One federal judge in CA ruled that Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc. could be held liable for "contributory copyright infringment" because it failed to stop a subscriber from posting the Church Of Scientology's copyrighted text's online.

Now to me that is pretty scary. According to this court case we are responsible for our customers actions no matter what... The conclusion, "we are responsible for our customers actions no matter what..." can not be inferred from the COS case. Their contention was that Netcom was given many notices that copyrighted material was being made available on their server, and was given complete details as to which Netcom user was making them available, and even given the real identity of that user, and still did not act.

By no means am I saying that the COS was right in that case or any of their other heavy-handed activities regarding privacy and speech on the internet, but the case is much more specific than the first post here would imply.

well I'm a law student over in Switzerland. Comparing the our legal system with the on you got in the US I would also feel scared if I was in your position...
I just think your legal system lacks a great deal of common sense. *no offense ment*
All this going to courst stuff and sueing for nothing really worth doing it... I just don't understand that!

Originally posted by microsol
For that monthly fee i can get a very good lawyer myself! And for that monthly fee I can get a couple of cars. But that wouldn't accomplish the same goal, would it?

Getting a lawyer and putting a lobbyist in Washington, which is wht jic suggested, are two entirely different things.

Originally posted by JayC
Getting a lawyer and putting a lobbyist in Washington, which is wht jic suggested, are two entirely different things.

That's why we need a lobbyist in DC, so we wont need a lawyer. :)

Here are the reasons lobbyists == expensive

1) In order for the lobbyists to get a meeting with the senator they must meet with their top advisors. Sure you can do it for free but if you want to get in quick it costs $$$. I was speaking with the top advisor in the senators office and he is not supposed to make too much money (~$60,000 I imagine) but he was telling me about his house in a nice area of DC which I know had to cost at least $400k.

2) The lobbyist usually will also act as a PR agent. They will try to change peoples views on the web hosting business area as a whole or hopefully just for the companies that support them :).

It just costs a lot of money to get things taken care of in DC. Keeps the small dogs (which in perspective most of us are) out and the big dogs in. But if we were to form something it would make us a big dog.

Im based in Australia, was working for some people in the usa

Before i started my own web hosting biz, i was looking after around 7 box's with over 1 Terrabyte of information on them...

Many happy customers, good support, i had nothing to do with the company at all at any stage i was just helping out and getting my linux skills in tact for the big picture " My company "

I found it strange though they had some serious amount of disk space compared to the amount of customers they had!

Anyway, to keep a long story short, One day i lost all contact with them, the boxs the Ips the sites were all gone! I found out later via mirc, that the company got shut down and all servers were taken for evidence for serious piracy charges!

I mean if this was in Germany no one would care authority wise this is what i have been told... that is why so many warez sites use german servers ( Actually the data centres, Asian servers) :).

Its not worth the risk of running Illegal sites on your boxs at all, mp3s/warez are just bound to get you in trouble and knock out your business...

Big Business Rules.... Doesnt matter who you have on your side!

Kind Regards to all:)