All accolades aside, we so seldom see this degree of shadowing in childlike exchange in my profession.

Amongst otherwise well-known, high-functioning, earthly planetary beings, it remains a somewhat uncommon experience, regrettably.

Welcome to my world.

You have a fine sense of humor for your race and show higher thought functions in your strange marks on the primitive machine called, “computor”.

Mordor.

Such public displays of sacred ancient Xenu rituals are considered Homo Novis No-No’s and have been limited by the elders.

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http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/pubs/v49/no2/melone.html

“… 5. Bulletin board subscribers receive access to the Internet via their BBS operators (or on-line providers). The BBS operators gain their access to the Internet through access providers who have direct access to the Internet. As such, the access provider serves as a conduit between the BBS operator and the Internet but has no direct relation to the bulletin board subscriber…”

…”A.Contributory Liability Is the Best Standard for Access Providers

The best proposal for protecting the rights of the access provider, while still protecting the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, is to apply the contributory liability standard, as opposed to strict liability or vicarious liability. Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc.(63) recently settled out-of-court.(64) Religious Technology addressed whether an access provider should be liable for infringing work uploaded onto a BBS by a BBS subscriber. Dennis Ehrlich, a former minister of Scientology, voiced his criticism of the Church of Scientology on the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Ehrlich used copyrighted works of the late founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, without the permission of the Religious Technology Center (RTC). RTC holds copyrights to both Hubbard’s published and unpublished works. Ehrlich posted the work on the Usenet newsgroup, having gained access to the Internet via Klemesrud’s BBS.(65) Klemesrud does not have a direct link to the Internet, but obtains access via Netcom as the access provider.(66) Netcom would not only disconnect Ehrlich by terminating Klemesrud’s access, but would also disconnect Klemesrud’s other 500 paying customers.(67)

RTC wanted Netcom to be liable either directly, contributorily, or vicariously.(68) Netcom, unlike other on-line providers such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy, neither creates nor controls the information retrievable by its subscribers.(69) Netcom does not monitor its postings.(70) This would implicate constitutional law-privacy issues.(71) The California court was heading in the proper direction of setting a contributory liability standard in Netcom’s motion for summary judgment. Although copyright law uses a strict liability standard, there should still be some element of volition or causation, which is lacking, where a defendant’s system is merely used to create a copy by a third party.(72) However, since Netcom settled out-of-court, following the motion for summary judgment, the issue remains undecided.

Many compelling reasons mandated the adoption of the contributory liability standard. First, expansion(73) and innovation of the Internet would be deterred by the threat of liability whenever a subscriber uploads or downloads infringing material. The benefits of the Internet as an educational tool and the like would be tempered if a direct infringer’s actions (subscriber) could pose a threat to an oblivious access provider. Moreover, the substantial benefit of the Internet substantially outweighs the likelihood of any harm resulting from sporadic infringements. However, the copyright owner’s exclusive rights cannot be completely disregarded. The only equitable result mandates that liability be imputed solely upon the direct infringer”…

Maybe that is one trait of this new species that will enable others to spot them in a crowd; they will be the ones sporting the Hillary or Obama pins……

The story almost made me nostalgic for a simpler time when all the Electronic Frontier Foundation had to worry about were the shenanigans of a private group.

p.p.s.: Patty you’re a great researcher so I hope you see this question, but remember, I already know the high council of elders ruled on this suit in their own dimension. I was just wondering how it had trickled down to trailer-trash reality!

Jill

Does anyone know the result of the 1996? lawsuit referenced in the last sentence of this post? I believe they mentioned the year 1996 and the computer and BBS is older technology. Maybe this was settled. OT and OUT!!!

Jill

Mespo,

Good one!

I have to agree with Cruise and Travolta on their recent evolution. I am told the name of the new species will be “actorus washedupius,” and the phylum designation will be “searchingus for attentionius.”