Slashdot Mirror
AOL Liable For User Content In Germany?
Sjsop writes, "CANOE reports that a German state court has ruled that America Online (AOL Germany, at any rate) is liable for the content of its servers, even where it has no control over that content. (The story is here.) Hit Box Software sued because AOL-G users were trading some of its copyrighted music files and won the case, even though AOL shut down the forums where the trading occurred as soon as they found out about it. This sounds like Bad News to me, especially if (as is likely to happen) it's applied to smaller ISP as well as AOL." I read a great comment the other day: What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Professor Plumb?
AOL is not an ISP, AOL is an Online Service. An ISP just routes packets or stores stuff for a limited time (like newsgroups or proxy-servers). Well, they also store Webpages for their customers - and the customer is liable for unlawful content.
Now to AOL: AOL is a bit more than a packet shifter, AOL is a "Content Provider". They might for example offer a forum related to popular music. Now this forum (and its content) is a Value Added Service for AOL Users - no one outside from AOL can use this forum. And all those forums have one thing in common: They are (somehow) moderated by AOL or by people AOL "hires" to moderate.
And here lies the conflict with german law. All these forums are handled by an editorial staff paid by AOL. So AOL is responsible for all the stuff which is written/posted/whatever in these forums. AOL does know what is in these forums as soon as content is posted there.
Any normal ISP doesn't know about the content of the webpages it hosts, or the newsgroups it carries. When they get to know about content whih breaches the law, they have to delete it also. But they are not required to check on this content by themselves - there's no edotorial staff there.
So please: Before you condemn german law as being stupid (yeah, it is), please don't mix Online Services with ISPs.
If it had been an ISPs customer, who had these files on his webpages, he would have been the one being sued. On knowing the content of this webpage, the ISP would be required to shut it down, but they wouldn't have been liable for this content.
By the way, the text window on the posting page is way too small ;-)
Share and Enjoy,
Ralph
Of course they'll sue home depot for selling the pipe that killed professor plum. They'll also sue the manufacturer for being negligent in producing the lead pipe that killed him, and the vehicle maker that made the vehicle that transported the pipe to Mr Body's house, and construction company that laid the roads that the vehicle drove on to get to his house.
.ad nausem. . .you get the idea.
Of course, at some time they'll have to sue some ancient cultures for inventing the smelting methods that are used to produce the the metals that are used. .
Why so cynical? cuz some people have already started suing gun manufacturers cuz some other moron used a gun to kill some other moron.
** Martin
Oh please! we've all seen Ghostbusters! We ALL know how dangerous marshmallows of any type can be!
** Martin
If the lawyers can get away with it and win big money...
Yes
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Doesn't AOL have some fine print somewhere in their contract with a user that they are not allowed to have forbidden content on their site, through their connection to AOL and in their forums? And they state that they police this.
If this is true then AOL probably would be liable in some respect because they stated that they would police it.
A small ISP on the otherhand, may say that they are not responsible for any content in their users site or forums and that they don't police it.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
You are not moderated here for how well you frame your argument, nor for your persuasiveness, nor for any evidence that you might bring to support your argument.
Funny, those are all criteria I use when I'm moderating. And I've used almost all my points for the past month bumping posts up.
If you do not toe the party line, you are moderated down. This is, in fact, a form of censorship because many folks do not read Slashdot at a -1 threshold.
Don't thank Taco & Hemos or the moderators -- you can thank "[insert Slashdot editor here] sucks" and "Hot Grits" and "Natalie Portman" and "F1rZ7 p05t d0odZ" for my lack of enthusiasm for -1 posts and the recent raising of the default browsing level to 1.
(Although I do have "re-parent highly scored replies" turned on, so I frequently find myself dropping to -1 to find out what spawned a rather intersting reply. It'd be a lot easier if I could click on "Parent" and get the parent no matter _what_ it's scored...)
So, beware and be warned, karma whore that you are, you will be moderated down for not speaking the gospel according to Slashdot. You will be censored. You will be silenced. It is a fact of posting on Slashdot.
Look, if the moderation system is so bad here, why do you stay? That's what I don't get.
Jay (=
Worldwide patent offices SERVE "plans and recipies on the internet" showing "Weapons of mass destruction" that "The children" and "Terrorists" can "download with a click".
k e/subliminal/gas/ultrasonic/tempest/deto nator/timer/poison/propaganda/sci-fi/sexual pleasure invention they are paranoid about, is IN there.
More laws! More censorware! More suits!
Every bomb/fuse/mine/laser/maser/drug/radar/herf/sdi/nu
They knowingly provide this 'dangerous' content: i.e. the "description".
They even check and provide "certificates" of content!
I guess you'd be blamed for linking (or even listing!) a naughty number in Germany too...
...or even a typo...
Joe Torre - X - HardwareEngineer @ Amiga Inc & ZapMedia Amiga, AmigaDE, BeOS, Linuxz, QNX, Rebol, Windoze, ZME: So
If you are a common carrier, you should be immune to lawsuits if you act properly when informed of a violation of the law. Lawsuits should be directed at those that broke the law - your users in this case. Of course, there's no reason that the courts can't subpoena your logs and so forth in an effort to find the user. And if you're hindering prosecution, then you'll probably end up in contempt of court.
It is illegal to house illegal content once you are informed that you are doing so, which is really the issue here. Common carriers are permitted to not know exactly what they are housing until someone informs them, whereas non-common-carriers (like a newspaper publisher) can't deny knowledge of what they publish and don't get that protection.
As far as I'm concerned, some things probably are going to be illegal content (at least for the forseeable future). The real problem with this case is that common carriers are no longer safe from prosecution even when they followed the letter of the law. This is going to have a major negative effect on the Internet if the ruling stands, because there will effectively infinite legal responsibility for ISPs that allow users to set up web pages, chat rooms, etc. Result: a lot less of the interactivity that's made the Internet great (OK, a lot less "pictures of my dog" AOL web pages too, but you have to take the bad with the good :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
But when he KNOWS about the illegal stuff, he MUST block the access, when IT'S TECHNICAL & FINANCIAL affordable !
.... affordable" serves to exclude things like usenet and proxies.
I don't think so. Make that:
But when he KNOWS about illegal stuff on his own servers he MUST block the access, when IT'S TECHNICAL & FINANCIAL affordable !
The last part "when
No,
it's just the other way around, a provider is a service provider. Therefore he falls under the TDG (Teledienstegesetz) (see above). If he used the RPS, he would get a content provider. Therefore he would suddenly be liabel for _every_ illegal content to be found on the internet and were pressed to "block on demand" if someone informs him about nazi documents/kiddy porn whatever.
A funny thing to kill the RPS would be to get a domain, find someone to hack in and distribute mp3z (without the owners knowledge) and then - suddenly - exchange the mp3z with a new high profile e-commerce site. Wait a couple of weeks with a site blocked in whole germany and then sue the RPS providers for $$$$ damages.
But back to the TDG, you can read it up at http://www.fitug.de/ulf/politik/iukdg.html#art1, read 5 and see that you are wrong.
Misinformed? No. Just not nearly as closed-minded as you are.
Your notion is flawed.
The purpose of a tool is not inherent in its design (although a particular design may lend itself more towards a subset of purposes) - the purpose of a tool is determined by the user. If, in the absence of a hammer, I decide to use a large granite rock to bang in a nail, for the moment the purpose of that rock is as a make-shift hammer. If I need a battering ram, and the only thing I can find is a large tree that has fallen over, then the purpose of that fallen tree is as a battering ram. The purpose of an object shifts from use to use, and as a result cannot be said to have any one particular use.
In the United States, we arm our police officers with guns. If guns are such a travesty, why do we issue our police guns? Can't we simply hand them batons or tasers and go our separate ways? No, because the criminals have guns as well. So the guns we give our policemen become a defense. They become a deterrent to some types of crimes, and they become a defense against others.
Further, in all the rush for gun control, taking guns off the street, and banning guns altogether, I have yet to hear a single person say that once guns are abolished in American society that we should disarm our police officers as well. Why? Guns, for police officers, provide that deterrent/defense.
Where is the outcry? After all, if guns are designed to kill, shouldn't the police be going on massive shooting rampages? They carry guns everday - shouldn't we be hearing daily about a policeman simply snapping and gunning down a half-dozen people in a McDonalds? No, and the reason why is that we consider policemen to be responsible users of weapons. They have taken the training, they practice safe handling procedures, don't keep their guns near children, and so on.
Responsible gun owners do all of the above. They know how to fire a handgun because they have taken the training. They have an inherent notion of what constitutes safe handling procedures, and the responsible owners take great pains to secure their guns from their children - and to teach their children that guns are not a plaything. As long as I can remember, my father had guns in the house. I know that he had several different handguns and several different varieties of rifles. Yet he was a responsible gun owner, taught me right from wrong, and taught me that guns weren't play toys - and, as a result, I never even considered picking up a gun, no matter how bad my life was or how much somebody else irritated me.
So what we have here is a conflicting nature of guns: on the one hand, we sanction our police officers to carry guns because they have a positive purpose - deterrent against crime, and the ability of an officer to defend himself against a violent criminal. On the other hand, we have your implied argument, that the only things guns are good for are killing.
I take it, then, that you believe the police officers have the right to kill whenever and whoever they want, and that you don't have any problems with that.
Based on what I said, you reply changes nothing. A gun was designed for efficient killing, a pipe was designed for effcient transfer of water.
Ah, but you're still wrong.
The design of a gun achieves one function: to accelerate a lump of metal to a high speed in a very small period of time.
The design of a pipe achieves one function: allowing any object smaller than the diameter of the pipe to go in one end and come out at one or more other ends.
Neither one is inherently designed for killing. Period.
That's what AOL testified that they did - when somebody presented them with a complaint, they acted upon it.
The court decision seems to say that that isn't good enough - you have to be proactive and shut the stuff down *before* it starts. And, frankly, that's unfeasible at best and utterly impossible at worst.
The problem is, even if you're right in saying that the gun was originally invented for killing, it has evolved beyond that point. There are many, many other uses for guns nowadays beyond sheer killing, and even much of the killing that *is* done with guns is discriminatory.
So what you're doing is flogging a dead horse. Realistically, I can justify owning a gun under the terms of personal protection, for the exact same reason police officers are given weapons: because there are criminals out there who do not understand anything but a loaded weapon. Criminals own weapons, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly in American society that virtually all criminals don't obey the laws regarding weapon ownership. Gun control does control guns, but it basically controls guns only for those people who abide by the laws - the same people who are LEAST likely to be the aggressors in a gun-related incident.
As a result, while you've made life difficult for a small number of criminals who purchase guns, by and large you have not made an impact in the overall ownership of firearms by the criminal populace. What you HAVE done is denied the ordinary, intelligent, well-trained citizen of their best defense against the well-armed criminal population. "Rounding up guns," as you said in another post, doesn't do anything but deny the general public of a legitimate, efficient method of self-defense.
Of course, kids like Klebold and Harris, or that sixth-grader in Michigan, don't have such qualms. They'll obtain firearms illegally because of adults who don't give a damn about your "silly little gun laws", or they'll find alternate ways of doing the harm they want to (Klebold and Harris built bombs from instructions off the Internet). The type of strict, harsh gun control you propose is a mental placebo - it makes you feel good, it makes you think that you're doing something to solve the problem, but when it comes right down to it you've solved nothing, because the criminals will continue to buy, sell, and use firearms against the now defenseless populace.
It's legislative and political masturbation. Instead of solving the actual problem, you're simply throwing a tarp over it, wiping your hands clean, and saying to yourself, "Now the problem no longer exists."
It was Hemos, in the Library with the lead pipe.
Dude, you had better watch out. Hemos is gonna sue Andover for libel on Slashdot...
-BW
Glad to see U.S. style justice is spreading throughout the world.. blame/sue whoever has the most money, or is an easy target, and throw all rationalization out the window.
(sarcasm mode now off)
BilldaCat
The German Music Industry is already planing a filter system called "Rights Protection System" (ironic isn't it?), which could block illegal content. They plan to attach this system to the routers of all ISPs.
If all Content-providers can be sued for content on their servers, they will be forced to remove everything that looks suspicious.
Ans by the way, what about Napster and Gnutella, the Napster legal defense strategy wouldn't work in Germany.
Now maybe our European friends will get off their high horse and not be so quick to criticize Americans for all the stupid crap that goes on in the U.S.
We've all got stupid laws to work on getting repealed, and stupid politicians that need to be voted out of office. It's time to go to work and fix the stuff, instead of pointing to others and laughing at how stupid their countries are.
There is this weird perception that I meet all the time: if something bad happens to you, you deserve compensation.
I hope and pray that's it's only in America where this attitude is prevalent. Getting monetary compensation of mental anguish, give me a fsckin' break. I guess that is the result when a society places money as the ultimate achievement. Sad, really, sad..
--
+&x
Are you reading the same article as the rest of us? AOL has no control over the content of its servers when it doesn't know what that content is. You say yourself you "like the idea of retaining some privacy." You can't have that if AOL has to check to make sure that your data does not include copyrighted material. The way the article is worded, Hit Box sued AOL when it found out that copyrighted material was being transferred, not when AOL would not make a good faith effort to get that content off their servers.
Unless this article completely misrepresents the ruling, there is no common carrier protection in Germany.
Jeff
It did shut down the forum after it learned that music was being illegally traded there.
> hoped that ISPs are common carriers. I don't believe it has been tried in court, yet. Please tell
> me if it has.
In the US, ISPs are protected from such abuses by one of our all favorite laws: the Digital Milenium Copyright Act. Oh, paradoxes of destiny!
LOL! I stand corrected.
It's a good thing people like you are around to think of these things. I completely missed that aspect. But you're right of course.
[Actually, I was trying so hard not to laugh loudly enough to be heard beyond the server room that I nearly burst a vein.]
[Ah, and there's proof that using Slashdot should require a waiting period!]
So every ISP has to go through everyone's home directories and be absolutely sure that there is nothing illegal or objectionable? So my local ISP that has 3000 customers and 1 sysadmin needs to start doing this hourly? That's rediculous.
I can't believe that the powers that be expect this out of Internet providers. Keeping objectionable material of the net is literally impossible.
Case in point, CPHack, I can still get it, you can still get it. Once it's there it's there.
If things like this continue there will probably NEVER be free (speech) internet access again. Your ISP will have to log EVERY little action you do, every URL that you click, every email that you receive or send.
So yes while AOL can check to see what is on their servers, that is a very daunting task. And completely unreasonable.
As long as somebody can be punished for illegal content (which really is another issue) someone must take the responsibility in a legal manner.
Imagine this: I put up an FTP server where the incomming directory is world readable. I intend this to be my rogue site for illegal content, and when somebody ask me to remove this or that, I simply move it away for a couple of days and move it back.
If I get sued I say: "I didn't place it there. This server is ment for legal content and I can't check everything. If I am asked to remove stuff I will do it, but it just returns because people keeps uploading it..."
It all boils down to this: If I house illegal activities and hinder the procecution of the trespassers, then I am responsible. I provide the means to illegal activities. It is the same as owning a warehouse building and not securing it, you may end up being responsible for drug possesion since it is found on your property.
But... as I see it... it all comes down to this: Isn't the issue here, that we find it stupid to have an illegal content problem? If we, for the sake of argument, assume that some content is wrong (kiddieporn etc.), shouldn't it be illegal to house it? I mean it is the content policies we don't like, eh?
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
In general, people with a good case, don't lose.
Can I come and join you under the rock? must be nice there.
People with good causes but no money/lobbying power/or just a bit incompetent, loose all the time.
To (mis)quote Terry Pratchett: 'It's not just the cream that floats to the top'.
Methinks you are a karmawhore sir.
EZ
-'Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to log on..'
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
background checks prior to the sale of anything more harmful than mini-marhsmallows
Don't kid yourself. Mini-marshmallows can be turned into the regular sized marshmallows with a microwave and 50 pounds of sulfide based fertilizer. The regular sized marshmallows can then be turned into the even more deadly jumbo marshmallow. I know what you're saying, if we outlaw marshmallows, only outlaws will have marshmallows; however, studies show that if we flood the criminal world with chocolate and graham crackers, they will consume 87% of their marshmallows. If we then set up routine marshmallow checkpoints on the roads, and marshmallow detectors at the airports, we can expect to get 99% of the marshmallows off of the streets by 2018.
This is ridiculous. What a bunch of simps! No wonder we beat their ass in WWII.
Dave Blau
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
People don't kill people, lead pipes kill people.
Perhaps we should set up waiting limits and monitoring of people who attend plumbing conventions? "Sorry, sir, there is a mandatory background check on all people that want to buy pipe."
Ok...sorry about wh0ring but my sarcasm took the better of me. >;)
-Vel
Ummm, in most countries judges are required to uphold the law, regardless of their own feelings or opinion, unless they can show legal basis as to why the law should be overturned. It's the legislative body's right and duty to maintain a consistent set of up-to-date legislation.
In the United States, for instance, judges would not get very far if they, oh, chose to ignore laws and freed defendants unless they could overturn a law on constitutional grounds. Pacifists judges would not be permitted to let defendants cheerfully evade the draft, for instance, were it ever to be revived, and the doctrine of "nullfication" (if memory serves, that's the correct term for the concept that African-American jurors should be lax on African-Americans in order to balance for alleged injustices prior and present) also has no basis in law. The judicial system is not the lawmaker.
So if German law states that ISPs are liable, and there are no legal grounds for overturning that, and their judges don't get much more latitude than most anywhere else, the fault really lies with the lawmakers and those who elected them.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I doubt that would work. Germany with 82 Million people is a far to important market to be ignored.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Having the world on the brink of a nuclear War is called stability? I guess that is the US definition of stability.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Bongs, like lead pipes, have multiple uses.
;)
I'm sure he meant a TOBACCO bong, as these are the only ones sold usually.
I wonder who else sees similarities between suing the gun and tobacco industries for individuals using their products to do harm, and this? In the case of tobacco, it's an example of people suing others for doing harm to themselves. The tobacco company should certainly be liable for misleading their audiences, but I do not believe that people who smoked for 40 years never noticed it affected their health. The punitive damages that are being issued could potentially destroy a legal industry, one that is supported by the people doing the suing.
That this latest nonsense took place in Germany seems to be a matter of geography, since the general mood of finger pointing seems to be universal, what with Brazil banning certain video games and demands for ratings for content across the spectrum.
In short, and I don't want to pull out any Libertarian bromides, but it seems that this kind of liability laziness on the part of governments and society at large is ultimately as harmful as the original actions, if not more.
I used to be a cynic, then I got disillusioned with it.
Unfortunately, this is not without precedent. I can think of some firearm makers, for example, who have been subjected to law suits for the use made of the items they make...
The point is that since human behavior is intrinsicly difficult to control lawmakers prefer easier venues of controlling the means by which human behavior is carried out. It is much easier to lock a door then control who goes through it.
One can only hope that we will be able to persuade lawmakers that stop-gap law-making never addresses the root of the problem.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
So if the government creates a public utility - let's say a highway, and someone uses that highway to do something illegal, let's use the example of driving drunk and killing people...
Just who is liable? Using this analogy as an example case, the ruling would be against the government for not properly policing their highways. In other words, they would be pushed to create systems where a driver would have to undergo biometric identification and a sobriety test before entering a freeway ramp.
No way, you punish the driver and make sure that it's very difficult for him to get his license back.
- passion
IIRC, the Compuserve trial you mentioned was turned down in the appeals court. BTW the first ruling was also done by a Bavarian court (just like this time). Most people over here in Germany think that Bavarian courts semm to have absolutely no clue about internet technology.
The Compuserve trial was about access to pr0n newsgroups - the german head executive of Compuserve was held responsible for all the stuff in the newsgroups they offered access to. Since some of these groups contained pictures and stories which are illegal in Germany, he was accused of spreading illegal pornography. As a consequence, Compuserve/AOL totally blocked acces to all newsgroups containing sex related material (even those groups about gay/lesbian rights or abuse recovery).
BTW the Scientology ban has nothing to do with that. Scientology isn't liked because it isn't considered a religion but a sect using their "pseudo-religion" to gain economic power and secretly working against the Constitution. Groups working against central parts of the constitution are per se illegal in Germany (like the left-wing terrorist group Red Army Fraction and several extremist left and right wing parties. As you surely know, Germany had both a extrem right (the Nazis) and a left wing (in the former GDR) dictatorship, and doesn't want that to happen again in any case.
That lead to some measurements a lot of US or Canada residents deem extreme themselves, but AFAIK most European countries share Germanys current view because they themselves suffered under the Nazis during WWII and/or a communist dictatorship during the cold war.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
IIRC, some time ago, there was a similar case regarding an illegal left-wing magazine hosted at xs4all.nl. Access to xs4all was blocked at the main German routers, thus blocking everything hosted there. The result was a massive mirroring of the page in question all over the world, rendering the blocking totally useless. In fact, quite a lot of people started actively searching for the documents just because the government didn't want them to read them.
In the end, the blocking itself was ruled unconstitutional because it infringed on the rights of all the people wanting to access the legal sites hosted at xs4all.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
In fact, the parties banned are from the extreme left or right. We still have quite a lot of left- or right-wing groups which are sometimes under surveillance by the Verfassungsschutz (a kind of secret service which observes groups whith openly anti-constitutional behaviour), but otherwise legal. E.g. the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), the direct successor of the GDR's ruling communist party, is not illegal and has delegates in quite a lot of the German states and the federal parliament. Scientology isn't illegal (yet), either.
IMO, the "official" dislike for communists comes from the fact that
a) Germany was divided for 40 years and we had the Iron Curtain just in the middle and
b) left-wing terrorist activity in Germany during the 70s/80s was the hottest in all Europe.
After the reunification, this (the dislike) has somewhat lessen. Quite a lot of people now consider the PDS politically acceptable.
BTW what exactly do you mean with "Seems mass murder is still okay if it's done for the good reason."?
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Great argument. "You are misinformed." Let me guess... you were captain of the debate team, right?
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Professor Plumb?
Or:
Suing Gun companies for selling guns that folks shoot each other with?
Suing Tobacco Companies for selling the tobacco that caused medical expenses for tobacco users?
But you get my point. In each of the three cases, the actual injuries were caused by others, the defendants only provided the means.
We really need to think more about what we want liability to be.
/(o\ I'm not a medievalist - I just play one on weekends!
Now, someone hosting a web site is usually considered a publisher. The courts will usually decide how much responsibility they have over content, and will take into account what action they took when they received a complaint.
I also ask you to consider what happens when such libels are posted anonymously. Is it just that the person libelled has no legal redress against anyone?
Now the right to free speech is an important one. It's just that in Europe, we don't tend to see things as such absolutes as some folk do in the US. Suppose personal details about you were published on the web? Are you so keen now that the web host has legal immunity?
I couldn't actually tell you what my ideal solution would be. But I don't think things are anything near as black and white as you believe.
Problem; Germany, the UK, and other countries holding ISPs liable for content found on the internet.
Solution; Pull the content away from these countries, thus taking away the internet from them.
If a big ISP like AOL were to threaten this and completely pull out of Germany, you can bet they would regret it. Other countries would take notice and fear the same thing happening to them, should they be dumb enough to attack ISPs.
"Sorry, users, your government has decided we can no longer do business in Germany. Contact this phone number (number of state court that made the decision) for further information, the case is docket number #xxxxxxxx .
Also, you can complain to your local legislator, to get his phone number, enter your postal code and click here.
If this situation continues, we will stop billing your credit card and refund money for days on which your service couldn't be used due to your government"
y2k info - http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/y2k.html
Tech Public Policy stuff
-=RR=-
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
"Finally, did freedom of speech help the indigenous native American population avoid genocide at the hands of the European invaders?"
Nope, neither did it help the Irish against the English, Basques vs the Spaniards, Nepalese against the Chinese, Zulu against the Boers, the Islamic world against the Horde, the Persian empire against the Islamic world, the Romans vs the Germans, the Mycaeneans against the Dorians, or the Neanderthals against the Cro-Magnons. What's your point?
-=RR=-
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
This ruling proves that with the dawning of the internet age, Germany and the rest of the "mature societies" still haven't even woken up to the age of enlightenment. Hell, what do you expect; every fifty years or so europe goes crazy and we get to absorb all their intellectuals (not necessarily a good thing as the international style of architecture proves).
-=RR=-
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
If they're told about specific incidents, that's another issue.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
(For Americans, gaol is a british word for jail).
Sexual intercourse with animals actually is allowed in germany, and all propaganda is illegal, no matter whether nazi or communist.
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/moeffju
I do not think it will hold up in appeal. First of all, AOL aint no helpless dwarf. Second, it is definately a silly veredict. Germany has decent mechanisms to deal with this kind of situations and no interest whatsoever in really harming any branch of the IT industry. In fact, there is a huge discussion in germany on how to promote the sector.
And the court lies in Bavaria. This is a very right-winged state. A lot of these guys look like they are secretely envious at the Austrians for Haider. This people hate change and everything that is different. I do not think such a court ruling would have happened somewhere else.
rmstar
maybe I can sue M$ for pain & suffering caused by installing/repairing windowz on friends pcs...
--DarthVdr
"Why can't we all just get a bong?"
--DV
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
Did he make the posts? Nope!
Did a Compuserve member make the posts? Nope!
Did the servers reside in Germany? Nope!
Did the news servers of their own (state run) ISP carry the smae posts? Yep!
Did CompuServe respond and yank posts within hours of being notified of their existance? Yep!
But yet they STILL convicted him...
However... Felix Somm was aquitted on appeal.
I don't think that this is possible to do in the US. I believe that the law states that as long as the content is removed as soon as it's reported, the ISP can't be held liable. I could be wrong though.
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
Rather than arguing whether AOL has the ability to monitor all files on their servicers, we should all be asking the quesion "Do we want our ISP to monitor all of our files?" We all Agree to a contract that says our ISP CAN monitor our files, but unless they have a specific reason to, most are not going to. I never put personal material or illegal material on my sites, so I'm not really worried about my ISP "finding" anything. However, if ISP's are being sued left and right by the RIAA, the MPAA or whoever, they will HAVE to start monitoring everyone. This could lead to higher ISP costs due the increased man-power, server-power, etc... In the end, the consumer suffers. Another chip of your freedom off the block. Laws are written and passed to protect the people. Laws which uphold the interests of large corporations at the expense of those people are doing more harm than good. Someone else posted: In general, people with a good case, don't lose. I say if the law is bad to begin with, we all lose!
lysdexic
"If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing."
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a t
The German Music Industry is already planing a filter system
How nice of them. I trust that this will be an open protocol rather than a specific implementation, and it will give no false positives. And I'm sure that this can be implemented at no cost at all to the ISP's or Germany's total bandwidth. After all, I'm sure they realise that only a small proportion of internet traffic is actually illegal music.
Actually, how will this work? If it just dumps infringing packets, they'll simply be resent with a smaller packet size.
Although the article seems fairly clueless, I think that this was actually a discussion forum. This could mean that the data was merely being sent through their servers.
It did close the forum after learning that it was being used illegally.
The thing that strikes me as odd is that, from my experience, Europe tends to hold the individual responsible for their own actions a lot more than we do in the US. I wonder if this is a disturbing trend of change, or if they are targetting AOL (offended at the A of AOL).
That is an interesting thought: AOL-G (America On-Line: Germany). I wonder if they get offended by that reference. Its almost like they are expressing some sort of annexation.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
Purtians? Freedom of Religion? Gov't out of religion? Someone has read The Story of Thanksgiving one to many times. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of historical misinformation passed out in U.S. schools. The Puritans came to the "New World" for freedom of religion all right, freedom to practice their religion and no other. There was no mass Puritan persecution going on in England, Puritans could practice there, they came here to found a colony in which ONLY Puritanism was practiced. Far from seperating church and state the early New England colonies were practically a theocracy. Non-puritans were a persecuted majority not given most of the rights of citizenship. Decsions were made in church councils at the local level, and the church leadership had a great deal of influence even at the colonial level (Rev. Cotton Mather was one of the judges at the Salem Witch trials, his father Increase was also a clergyman/judge). Our Constitiutional freedom of religion is a result of latter and more secular minds, many of whom were Deists. The whole story of Puritans coming to this country to escape "persecution" and establish "religious freedom" was a great PR job by later American Whig historians living in...hmm.. New England.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I don't think we should let our mutual hatred of AOL color this issue too badly. Germany is pulling some bullshit here, and I sincerely hope that the US courts pay no attention to this shit. Of course, with this Time-Warner deal going down, maybe pretty soon, they can just b[buy]b Germany in a stock swap.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
I imagine you won't pay any attention, but for the record: I am not a barbarian. I have NEVER shot at anyone, and I hope I never have to. I don't currently own a gun, and I hope I never have to. That being said, I refuse to be labelled a barbarian because I believe responsible people should be allowed to own guns. It has apparently not been brought to your attention that 50+% of American households have guns. I may be wrong, but it occurs to me that the vast majority of those people MUST be responsible gun owners or we'd have a hell of a lot more shootings. Since we don't, clearly some people can be trusted with guns. How 'bout we just take the guns away from people with a demonstrated capacity for using them improperly and leave them in the hands of those who have demonstrated the ability to use them properly.
Reality check: AOL has 22 million accounts, and each of those accounts can have up to 7 screen names. Conservative estimate... let's say that makes about 100 million screen names floating around out there.
Now at any time any one of these screen names can decide to create a web page chock full o' MP3s, or one of the many MP3 private chat rooms. Of course, when AOL is informed, they crush the web page, wipe out the chat room, and kill the screen name at fault, if not the entire account. (Of course most of these accounts are AOLamers who fancy themselves 'hackers' and will just go use another stolen password to get on and do the same again)
Now there's no love lost between me and AOL (I work for them, I KNOW how much I despise them) but, this isn't about personal feelings. This is about simple logical thought. Can you think of a way to balance user freedom to create web pages and chat rooms and yet also avoid the creation of illegal MP3, warez, and porn rooms?
These things happen every day and AOL does, in fact, remove them every day. I know, I have a few friends working in the community action team department who spend their days doing just that.
So before you go poking AOL with sticks becuase they should be able to control to the letter what any of 22 million people are doing at any time, consider first the logistical difficulties behind getting even one million people to do any one thing correctly at once!
Thank you.
Mad Dreamer
-Mad Dreamer
"That lead to some measurements a lot of US or Canada residents deem extreme themselves, but AFAIK most European countries share Germanys current view because they themselves suffered under the Nazis during WWII and/or a communist dictatorship during the cold war. " Yes, Germany regulates political speech of unpopular parties, but most ECU states ban only Nazi-like parties; communists are not only acceptable but welcome (and continue to serve in the government). Seems mass murder is still okay if it's done for the good reason. Now if only the potential gun-toting, mass killing, high school students will form a union or religion, then they, too, can be banned and the Pinkertons will be on the side of Germans.
If money doesn't buy happiness, you're not spending it right.
Are stories only acceptable from different persons or do you have to write Taco directly?!!?
--
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Rule #1: Laws suits go were the money is.
Subsolar
Let it go. It's over.
And you are misinformed.
That was not the point, dimwit. The gun was created for efficient killing, not for shooting tin cans off a fence post. It was not intended as an argument, just an observation.
Those are statements made to defend a flawed and dangerous product that, realisticly, the average person cannot justify owning.
Oh, yeah, personal protection. I forgot that one!
Hmmm...using my Slashdot simplification engine, I don't know what to think of this. Usually when I read a story about anything bad happening to AOL, I get happy.
But censorship is bad!!! (Although I don't know if this is censorship, the issue seems to be around copyright and not content). So what do I think...
I will have to start throwing off sparks, smoking, and saying "ERROR...ERROR...ERROR" in a monotone.
And to all my old customers, this just proves, No, IT DID NOT "ALWAYS WORK ON AOL"
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
WHY did this article change from Mr. Boddy to Prof. Plumb? And why are both names misspelled? Does (is it Parker Brothers?) whoever owns Clue regularly come by and read Slashdot? Whatever.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Darn Right it's insane. If the providers are held responsible, then does this mean that the posters are not? So the poor innocent ISP get's a legal flamethrower where the sun don't shine, and the REAL pirate get's off scott free. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE JAVA IDIOTIC LEGAL DROIDS.
As far as jury nullification, it does exist, but isn't particularly common. OJ Simpson wasn't jury nullification, it was 12 stupid people, 4 high priced lawyers, a judge more interested in TV ratings than judging, and incompetent prosecutors.
Every once in a while, though, someone busted for marijuana possession tries to use a jury nullification defense to convince the jurors that it shouldn't be a crime. Usually without success.
No, he must theoretically block the access to foreign servers, too.
However, the ISP can claim:
- He can't shut down the access to the whole internet / usenet etc. 'cos large parts of these deal with 100% legal information wanted by it's customers. So blocking it would destroy his company. And the principle that only decent measures may be taken by laws is part of the german constitution (Verhältnismäßigkeit).
- He can't block specific URLs (up to now) because the recent technology doesn't allow this at affordable costs.
So he doesn't block anything, but he removes illegal information from his servers.
BTW: That's the trick with the RPS system
- if this URL Blocking System really work and
isn't too expensive, all german IPS could be
forced to use it. So the music industry could enforce in Germany the blocking of all mp3/warez servers. And once installed the system would be
used to filter the other stuff, too.
You are the dot in slashdot !
Germany is like this... they also ban Scientology, and if I remember correctly AOL's company 'Compuserve' was in some similar shit in Germany before AOL bought them... AND they had to add the word "downloaden" to their vocabulary ;) I used to bowl, when I was an alcoholic.
Ok, I hate AOL like the plague. The AOL/Time Warner thing to me is 10x scarier than Microsoft, they'll own the Internet, the Cable Modems, the TV. They will be brainwashing us day and night. An ISP should not have to police it's member pages and forums *UNTIL* a complaint is made. No ISP should passively allow MP3 trading that they are aware of. The fact that AOL is supposed to be halfway moderated implies their employees (moderators) were looking the other way. They should not have to police member accounts to find illegal activity, since that is a privacy violation. Yet, given knowledge of such activity, looking the other way is highly unethical. I consider Napster unethical and they need to be shut down, but hey, I am enjoying it while it is still running. Incidentally, if you want to talk about illegal activity, look at gnutella's search monitor feature. I personally don't like my computer forwarding requests and helping other computer's find porn. In this sense, I would say Napster and the AOL situation is much less illegal than Gnutella, which supports underground traffic of all kinds and sucks bandwidth like there is no tomorrow. ---
-------------------------------------------------
sorry about the formatting, I completely forgot this is HTML.
I think the obvious implication of this type of decision is to discourage ISPs, through threat of liability under copyright (in this case) or libel (think Demon), from allowing individual users to post their own content online. Who stands to benefit from an internet with higher barriers to entry for producing content? Existing media companies (who don't want the competition) and governments (who are already cozy with these established players).
I fully expect to see more of these cases arise, all over the world; this is the future of the mainstream internet.
Waxing cynical,
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Without your free speech rights, your property rights are up for grabs and there's nothing you can say about it. There's a solid reason why the First Amendment is the FIRST amendment.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Without your free speech rights, your property rights are up for grabs and there's nothing you can say about it. There's a solid reason why the First Amendment is the FIRST amendment.
Yeah, its because the Puritans and others who came to "The New World" to escape religious persecution felt it was extremely important to keep the government out of the religion business. They saw the trouble that comes from having the Church and State be one with the religious wars in France and England.
THAT is why the First Amendment is the First Amendment.
There's a reason for the Second Amendment being the Second Amendment: because force of arms is the only way to guarantee the rights granted under the First Amendment.
Jeez. I could go on like this all day....
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
How right you are, Streetlawyer! When I saw what had been done to your previous post, it made me wish that I hadn't used all my moderator points yesterday.
The moderation system on Slashdot is often abused, in much the same way that a legal system was abused in the AOL Germany case at hand. Just because you say something that some Slashbot (I like that phrase) who happens to have moderator points disagrees with, you get moderated down. You are not moderated here for how well you frame your argument, nor for your persuasiveness, nor for any evidence that you might bring to support your argument. If you do not toe the party line, you are moderated down. This is, in fact, a form of censorship because many folks do not read Slashdot at a -1 threshold. So, beware and be warned, karma whore that you are, you will be moderated down for not speaking the gospel according to Slashdot. You will be censored. You will be silenced. It is a fact of posting on Slashdot.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I will not write a long rant about clueless press copying each others (wrong) articles and repeating the music industrie's pointless propaganda and about slashdotter thinking they get the real facts of a jurisdiction out of 3 lines in an article.
Instead I will point out just three small factlets:
- The company sued because of three midi songs which were created by them and were downloadable in that forum.
- AOL didn't do anything although they knew of the problem
- AOL forum != internet.
Oh, and AOL isn't fighting for free speech here, they're fighting for low costs. It's the for same reason for which they give a f*ck about usenet spam and UCE complaints.
The viewpoint you are missing is called compensation.
More correctly, it's called the "deep pockets" legal theory: don't sue the guilty ones, sue those who can pay you.
I mean let's face it, they do deserve some compensation.
They do? Maybe, in the grand scheme of things. But why does the ISP have to pay it? Why not the phone company, or the CD players' manufacturers, or the local supermarket, or somebody else? There is this weird perception that I meet all the time: if something bad happens to you, you deserve compensation. I don't see why it is true, or even how it possibly can be true, but the good people persist: I spilled coffee on myself -- let's sue McDonalds!
If you are trying to argue there is some justice in this, you have not succeeded.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
It was a Bavarian court that found Felix Somm (the then head of Compuserve Germany) guilty of disseminating pornography and handed down a suspended prison sentence. Then as now, the company were held responsible for what users (in another country) had posted on the web.
That verdict provoked uproar in Germany and did not survive the appeal. It is too early to see if this bit of idiocy is going to go the same way, but the waves it is making are not as visible.
The previous verdict was considered an embarrassment to Germany in general and Bavaria in particular.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
German law knows nothing about ISP liability as such (I think), they are stretching a law here to treate AOL as they would a publishing house.
Then again, AOL *is* a publishing house!
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Several years ago Bavarian police got after Compuserve because they were making (gasp!) pr0n available from their servers. Compuserve responded by CYA: they couldn't stay in business if they had to censor every packet, so they shut down in Germany rather than get creamed in court.
Of course, the rest of the German users, as well as all of the other ISPs, decided that this was a Really Bad Idea and very shortly sanity prevailed.
At this very moment, I'm confident that every single ISP doing business in Germany is letting the Powers That Be know that in light of this decision they have no choice but to cease operations in Germany (or possibly the entire EU).
Let's see what that kicks off.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It requires about three generations for a fundamental social concept (e.g. personal responsibility, freedom of speech) to fully "take". It hasn't been that long yet -- some of the soldiers who imposed a free Western state on one half of Germany are still alive, and some of the computers built when it came to the other half are still in use.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
> ... will just require that all purchasers of lead pipes undergo psychological profiling prior to the sale
Didn't the Germans already do a very efficient job of this back in about 193[89]? At least kids in the US today aren't getting gassed over the results -- yet.
I'm sorry to see this ruling, but it doesn't surprise me. Many european countries have government-owned telecommunications, or have had them until very recently. Their courts are used to this being the norm, unlike in the US.
The real problem with this, or any other simmilar rulings, is they are unenforcable. Even if AOL wanted to monitor traffic this closely, I can't see how they could do it without severely crippling their connectivity.
I wish the damn music industry would figure out that if they sold music the way people want to buy it, they wouldn't have to use their lawyers so much...
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
How about, when they are incapable of vetting every one of their customers' web page uploads?
Hellooo... they did. That they can be sued even after complying with a request to remove material they were not previously aware of is absolutely astonishing.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
You see, in the U.S., if someone leaves a bar drunk, drives away, gets into an accident, and hurts someone, you can sue the bartender (or more accurately, the bar itself) for letting the guy get so drunk in the first place.
Granted, the whole point is to prevent bartenders from pushing people to buy so much alcohol that they get wasted, but it's another example of spreading the blame to as many people as possible instead of just the ones who are responsible.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It's such an easy problem to solve...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
AOL Germany said it would appeal. It argued that it lacks technical means to monitor the service's huge data flow and that it had closed down the forum where music was illegally swapped after learning of it.
That is: They acted like any other ISP, removing files and/or accounts when abuse is reported, but not monitor every file themselves.
How do you suggest any ISP to guarantee that no account will ever be used for illegal activities? They can punish the "pirates" they catch, but not prevent all pirating.
Would you prefer a lawyer approving of *every* *single* *file* put on the net? That is what it would take to be "in control"
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Which they did. Read the article!
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Maybe not in general, but it happens.
AOL are not completely clueless, They claim that they took appropriate measures to shut down the page. I just can't believe that such a big player as AOL would open themselves for a lawsuit by not removing illegal material after being informed. If *their* effort (whatever it was) is not enough *no* ISP will be safe.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
It is just that you and I are not disinterest bystanders. The effect of these actions on us is that the barriers to entry for ISP's are raised. We get less choice of ISP's and less services. But we can't get any representation in this legal process! We have to go aroundabout to lobby for laws to stop this kind of thing. This is more complicated and is hard.
I am just dreaming here, but maybe if the courts are not just about one-party versus another, but also have third party, public interest kind of representation ... (cut to John Lennon's Imagine)
...*nix users go on about pipes (and how great they are) at every given chance.
What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Mr. Boddy?
We all know this is FUD CmdTaco, everyone knows Mr. Green was killed by the lead pipe (in the kicthen if you where wonder), and Mr. Blue was killed with the rope (IIRC in the bathrom).
And who exactly is Mr. Boddy, you twisted pet name for cowboy neil? Get with the program CmdTaco, if you check altavisa, google or yahoo "people" search, there has never and will be never a Mr. Boddy (there is a Mrs. Booty if you are wondering).
So please explain to us, the public, the ACs and the "hot grits" trolls, explain to us, on that frightfull night who did you REALLY kill Mr. CmdTaco?!? Admit it The Mr. Boddy murders where nothing more then a cover up played wonderfully by you the CIA! Admit it Mr. CmdTaco for the record What really happened?!?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
It was Hemos, in the Library with the lead pipe.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Seriously though. This is messed up. The eLegal system is getting so messed up because the judges don't have a clue about how servers/IPS/Content Providers work. When do we get to the point where we just give up and say "Fuck it"? It isn't worth the legal hassels to be online. I can't put Source Code on my homepage because it's free speach but corporate America doesn't like it. I'm afraid of putting an address book on my webpage because I'm now responsible for anything that goes onto my servers. I can't use one-click shopping or affiliate programs because Jeff Bezos owns those ideas.
WTF? What ever happened to free speech online? Time to start supporting the EFF more...
kwsNI
It seems to me that most people here don't know the german telco laws, so I'd like to explain some stuff here:
FAIK:
There are some contents which are illegal here in Germany (there might be more):
a) child abuse, sexual acts with animals
b) copyright violating stuff
c) racist / nazi propaganda , propaganda against the constitution.
Copying at least of a) and b) are illegal.
Note, that watching pictures in a browser counts here as copying !
For c) at least widespreading like setting up pages with his stuff is illegal. (Might be copying , too.)
However a provider is NOT liable for information / data provided by 3'rd parties like forgein web pages etc and NOT liable for content published by users. So he is NOT liable when the users upload such data. But when he KNOWS about the illegal stuff, he MUST block the access, when IT'S TECHNICAL & FINANCIAL affordable ! When he doesn't stop this access under these circumstances, then he might be sued.
So no evilness there.
The main cause why AOL was hold liable, was the fact that there were moderators controlling the forum for illegal stuff and that music is always protected by copyright (the German Urheberrecht is a little different from US/english copyright).
See the Financial Times Deutschland http://www.ftd.de/tm/in/FTDP08T9Z6C.html?nv=se
for details.
The second part seems a little questionable to me: it might be impossible to provide music without an explicit permission of the author.
You are the dot in slashdot !
Indeed, and that's why nobody requires it. But if I tell you that your server contains my copyrighted material, then you are obliged to either remove it, or meet me in court.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
(I note that the link is to the main page of canoe.ca, from which it is a bit of a search to locate the article)
As I said in the post that you scanned to minutely before accusing me of not having read something properly, the judgement almost certainly was that AOL had not made sufficient effort to shut the forum down and to remove existing copyrighted material. Hence its losing the case. This case will have turned on a lot of sophisticated legal argument and very specific facts which cannot be done justice in a short news piece, but the fact that AOL lost is at least prima facie evidence that they were in the wrong. In general, people with a good case, don't lose.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Don't moderate this down. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no "-1, Unpatriotic" moderation. Also contrary to popular opinion, free speech is only one good thing among many, and should not be such a sacred cow. Property rights, for example, are a much stronger defence against government tyranny than the protection of the speech of people with nothing to say. There ought to be discussion on this issue, and that discussion should not be hampered by the refusal of some people to even consider part of the problem.
Ever noticed how the loudest advocates of free speech have never had an original thought in their life? Look at slashdot, for example. A hundred thousand people, all speaking miraculously with the same voice. I've never understood why the slashbots are so worried about "free speech". It's an undisputable fact that no government in history has put people in prison for mindlessly parroting the party line. You've nothing to fear.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Under what circumstances does AOL have no control over the content of its servers?
When AOL is drunk?
When AOL is intoxicated by inhalation of $3 crack cocaine?
When AOL is asleep, and a tree falls on the telephone line, rendering AOL unable to communicate with the outside world?
When AOL has fallen victim to a bizarre and tragic cheese accident, and is suffering from "locked-in syndrome", so it can only communicate by twitching its nose, and its nose is tired?
When AOL is looking the other way?
When invisible monkeys have impersonated AOL to the phone company, and transferred all of AOL's phone lines to their underwater lair?
AOL is in control of what exists on its servers. It has the power to remove material at any time. If it wants to remove material it can, and if it refuses to do so after it has been informed that the material is illegal, it ought to expect some consequences. AOL's relationship to the material is far, far, more like that of a publisher to a pamphlet than that of a telephone company to a conversation, or for that matter of Home Depot to a piece of lead. The fact that the German courts failed to accept AOL's moves to remove the material is far more likely to indicate that these moves were token and not in good faith (of course, nobody wants to do anything so radical as to rad the transcripts) than anything else.
I like the idea of a super-free Internet with no responsibility as much as anyone else, but I also like the idea of retaining some privacy, control over my life and protection from slander. The Internet is not so vastly different from other media that we can lift the normal rules of human decency. --streetlawyer, abusing his +2 bonus since last week
-- the most controversial site on the Web
It seems like such a common-sense thing that you don't hold the provider liable! You're right, and this is also the standpoint of German law. It states that 'providers are only liable for outside content, if they know of this content and if it is possible and reasonable for them to prevent its use' (sorry for the bad translation). If it is the case (as it is presented in the article cited above) that AOL didn't know of the illegal content, this verdict will very likely not survive the appeal. Unfortunately, I don't have the text the judge used to justify this verdict, but another article I have read about this case indicates that he argued that AOL didn't act even though they knew about this piracy incident. This would make his standpoint at least a bit more sensible. The judge could of course simply have misunderstood the facts that were presented, because he didn't really know how everything worked technically. Incompetence of the judges with regard to the internet is unfortunately a relatively big problem in Germany jurisdiction at the moment, which has also caused several other silly verdicts.
The music companies surely have a right for compensation, but this should under no circumstances mean that basic principles of jurisdiction can simply be ignored.
ISPs should not be made liable simply because the content is present on their servers, but only if they can be called guilty. If they immediately shut down this piracy forum after they found out about it, there is no reason, why their actions should be punished with compensation, even though it is harder or even impossible to persecute the people who downloaded the music in this case.
I am really, really tired of hearing about things like this. It seems like such a common-sense thing that you don't hold the provider liable! After all, libraries still shelve books containing information on explosives and guns-- should we hold them liable for acts of terrorism?
When lawn darts were decided to be so dangerous they should be taken off of the market, were toy stores sued? Nope. It was the makers of the lawn darts! If you post crap on the web, it should be your behind that gets sued, not your provider's. ESPECIALLY if they torpedoed your site as soon as they knew about it!
It seems that this is occuring with such frequency that there must be some fundamental viewpoint I'm missing. If the legal systems of various countries are ruling in this fashion, there must be at least a tiny argument for their side that I am missing. If anyone could provide this (so we can ponder and rebuff it) I would be very very grateful. I simply cannot think of any reason that this sort of ruling is morally or commonsensically defensible!!
I'm not sure the idea of common carrier status translates to German. In the US it is at least hoped that ISPs are common carriers. I don't believe it has been tried in court, yet. Please tell me if it has.
Interestingly, since AOL pulled the content, they were no longer common carriers. If an ISP monitors or censors their customer's content in any way, they endanger their common carrier status. I worked for an ISP that had a policy to not remove anything, even when asked by customers, for this reason. It was up to the customers to fight it out, bring legal action against eachother, etc. But, you better believe that the ISP helped the authorities in any way they could (assuming proper permits, etc), just like a phone company.
Even if you are told about an incident, offensive is in the eye of the beholder. Illegal is a different story. In my mind, this company should have gone to the authorities to prosecute those performing the illegal act. After the appropriate permits, warrants, etc. had been presented, AOL would have only been in trouble if it didn't help. Maybe I should start a country...
What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Mr. Boddy?
Naw, it'll never come to that. Home Depot will just require that all purchasers of lead pipes undergo psychological profiling prior to the sale. Eventually, there will be 5-day waiting periods and background checks prior to the sale of anything more harmful than mini-marhsmallows (buying the regular sized ones will require a check, since they're large enough to block someone's wind pipe).
You're holding up the nation that started the century by tearing down the balance-of-power system that had given Europe a century of peace, then followed up with a full-blown episode of national psychosis, as "mature"?
This is a definition of "mature" with which I am unfamiliar.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
If AOL (and other ISPs) suddenly withdrew from Germany, what would happen?
Maybe other countries would see that a law like this isn't such a great idea?
Now, where to start?
...unfortunately, if it goes through, it probably won't be handled very well.
ISP's cannot control what is on their servers, of course. Data simply moves around too fast for that, and their servers rely on too many external sources.
AOL, though, is different. The AOL system is totally senf-contained. In short, AOL can control what's on their internal servers (Web servers are another matter). This makes them unique among online providers. And should they be liable for their content? Perhaps. They should certainly be liable for their users, whom they actually can teach such things as Net etiquette but refuse to do so (again, another case where AOL's self-contained system makes this possible).
The problem with the ruling is, courts aren't quite that smart yet. They won't get that AOL is unique among online providers. They'll think that everyone can control their servers like AOL can. And this is the problem, because that's simply not true.
So in the end, I'm afraid I've got to favor letting AOL off the hook. Simply because if AOL loses, the precedent will be used where it doesn't apply by people who don't know any better.
While we're at it, sue God for giving us bodies, brains, eyes and vocal cords, which can all be misused! Darnit God be more careful next time!