Slashdot Mirror
Intellectual Property and a Censored Slash Site?
The following is written by former-Slashsite admin, flikx:
Early last fall, I personally created a Slash site called SOS under student government for my University. I did everything myself with no outside help of any sort, and entirely volunteer. I have never been paid for my efforts in any way, and never expected monetary compensation. I did not actually work for the University, but was a student in Mechanical Engineering. I created said site with the ultimate goal of providing an open discussion forum and weblog for all students of the University.
During the course of operation of the site, I fielded numerous complaints about abuse to the site, and took them in a professional manner, though steadfastly refused to censor any content on the site. Remember that many in Utah are very conservative and dislike free speech on some levels...being fairly conservative myself, I never thougtht I'd run afoul of people. The problem is that I continuously ran afoul of politics as people threatened me repeatedly due to my failure to censor the site. The abuse was minimal, especially by Slashdot standards.
Six weeks ago, the administration censored the entire site due to the threat of legal action due to inapropriate content. The site was down for just over a week, and I was forced to implement strict posting guidelines and adopt a censorship policy for the site.
A new administration recently took over, and first on the list was to get rid of me, and the site. There's much more involved here in politics, plus scr1pt k1dd13 threats spoofed from my email and everything, but the bottom line is that the site was censored for good. The server was physically removed by the police, and the disks wiped after 'evidence' was removed. All known backups were destroyed, and they even obtained a protective order from me and banned me from the University property. I'm also suspended indefinately, and face immediate expulsion from the University. (BTW - I'm almost done with my Mechanical Engineering degree .. so this is not light by any means. If expelled, I'm forced to start over as a freshmen if I ever get into another school.)
So here's some of the problems with which I turn to the Slashdot crowd for a solution:
The administration threatened me, and had the legal team tell me that everything on the site is intellectual property of the University of Utah. Everything. That includes all stories, all comments, user accounts, even the graphic design I did. I have off-site backups of the site, and could easily redeploy the site elsewhere provided the time and hosting. I've already put 2000+ unpaid volunteer hours into the University, and they take away my work. It should be my right to operate an open discussion forum, but it seems that it's not.
What does the Slashdot crowd think about this issue? Should [or does] everything belong to my University? The only involvement the university had was hosting the site and buying the server, that's it. Obviously, the site could be moved elsewhere, and I still have a team together that could operate the site independant to the University. But as I am already being expelled and even facing criminal charges for 'computer crimes', this is far beyond your average Ask Slashdot."
Cliff: If you are interested in obtaining some context for this story, you can dig around the cached pages from SOS on Google.
.. if Utah ever demonstrated more clearly that it needs to be atomized, I've never seen it. It has become readily apparent that the only way to salvage anything even remotely sane out of that state is to subject it to a cleansing thermonuclear fire, wait for the radiation to die down, and begin anew.
"flikx" is a known associate of the Slashdot trolls and crap flooders at Geekizoid. Has there been independent verification of this sob story? Because if there hasn't, I've got to believe that this is yet another example of the kiddies trolling the submission queue. Even if it is true, I have a hard time feeling sorry for these people. Sort of like the chickens coming home to roost, if you know what I mean.
Mark Rivaldi
This is the same guy who helps out with the troll haven geekizoid. Also, this guy has his own flikx_spork account. He admits to being a troll in his user bio. Slashdot, where do you want to troll today?
When you _begged_ the geekizoid.com trolls to come visit you, what did you expect to happen? Did you expect them to play nice and not offend anyone? Did you expect the good, moral, U community would take a stand and moderate them down, rather than spewing ignorance themselves?
Hundreds of users? How many were U students? How many were trolls?
Nice to see the post has been conveniently deleted from geekizoid. Good revisionism. Too bad Google didn't cache it. You might not have been directly responsible for the content that was posted, but to say you were just standing up for free speech is bs. You actively encouraged trolls in order to gain more activity on the site. And given your association with geekizoid, I'm pretty sure you encouraged them with the intention of getting a rise out of the U, too.
Well, you got it. You're not a free speech martyr. Politics destroyed you? Someone spoofed your email? Both might be true (although my the latter really stretches the bounds of credulity) but the bottom line is that you _asked_ for inappropriate and offensive content to be posted. You encouraged people to abuse a University-funded system, and then refused to take actions to prevent them from doing so.
If I was a U dean, I'd have suspended you, too.
How can they be trying to censor you when you got a front page post?
Christ, you are trying to troll the trolls. Expect retaliation.
Secondly, take a look at the U of U Student Code. The Students Bill of Rights, section F. It reads:
F. Freedom of Expression. Students have a right to examine and communicate ideas by any lawful means. Students may not be subject to discipline because of their constitutionally protected exercise of freedom of association, assembly, expression and the press.
It would seem to me you were within those rights. Get a lawyer.
Section D of the Students Bill of Rights talks about due process.
D. Due Process. Students have a right to due process in any disciplinary matter involving the possibility of substantial sanctions. This includes a right to be heard, a right to decision and review by impartial persons or bodies, and a right to adequate notice.
Remember, even if you're expelled, that the people who are reviewing your sanctions are people who, given the nature of your site, were not neccessarily impartial. Get a lawyer.
Look at Section IIA, the Student Standards of Behavior. Notice that what you did is not prohibited by these standards. Get a lawyer.
And in conclusion, STOP ASKING SLASHDOT AND GET A LAWYER!
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
Flikx's motivations for creating the site are irrelvant. The site was created by him with no input from the university (other than some requests for censorship). U of U took his graphics and layout work (actually probably Slashcode layout for the most part).
The real kicker is the university grabbed Flikx's content simply because they owned the server. If I lent you my computer for you to write your dissertation on, does that mean I own your dissertation? If I let your borrow my pen and paper to write a letter does it mean I own the letter? If you put up a website on any ISP (which is what the University was acting as in this case, Flikx paid for the account with his tuition in the same way you would pay for ISP bills) does it mean the ISP owns everything you put up there? Technically, since the University has copyright on his work, the offsite backups he made are illegal and are grounds for a very hefty fine and inprisonment, and will be for 70 more years.
This is sensational but it illustrates how messed up the copyright system is currently. Technically, the university could claim copyright on any page you publish, take down the page, and the have you arrested for copying the page illegaly (for having the local working version on your computer).
Honestly, if he tries, I think he can get his copyright back in court, but the battle will be expensive and the university will probably still expell him and deny all attempts to transfer credits elsewhere. Isn't copyright law fun.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Of course he couldn't set up anything simliar to SOS. The school has claimed copyright on his work, which means he has no rights to use it unless they are explicity given (unlikly). If he set up anything similar to what he already did, there is a good chance the school will slap him with a copyright infringement charge in addition to whatever else they are apparently doing. I'm surprised he can't get transfer credit anywhere though, certainly there are schools the country that are more liberal and will take his transfer credits instead of making him start over from square one.
If the school had simply said that they wouldn't host his site anymore and make him take it somewhere else, I'd agree with you 100%, but since they took all of his ideas and content and placed them under copyright, then I have to disagree with you. For that matter, what's to prevent ANY isp you host with from taking over your material? I mean the reason the school took it was because they owned the servers (although his tuition paid for those servers), but your ISP owns it's own servers as well. The same logic would seem to apply. I don't know many ISP TOSes that explicity protect your content from this sort of thing (0 actually).
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
In case anybody's interested in contacting the university about this, I've dug up some contact information (all publically available on their site). Please keep emails civil and explain issues calmly to try to convince them that what they're doing is wrong. (Note: most of these contacts are actually fielded by executive assistants and such; the President doesn't actually answer his own phone or email, but if a good deal of mail comes in it'll still be noticed and possibly brought to his attention).
President J Bernard Machen:
Tel: (801) 581-5701
Fax: (801) 581-6892
Email: president@utah.edu
General Counsel John K. Morris:
Tel: (801) 581-5115
Fax: (801 )585-7007
Email: dolson@legal.admin.utah.edu
Associate Vice President for Information Technology and Outreach Clifford J. Drew:
Tel: (801) 581-7838
Fax: (801) 585-5993
Email: sturpin@aoce.utah.edu
Board of Trustees:
Tel: (801) 581-3033
Fax: (801) 585-8211
Email: calleen.bennett@utah.edu
Vice President for Student Affairs Barbara H. Snyder:
Tel: (801) 581-7793
Fax: (801) 585-3890
Email: chebert@saff.utah.edu
Vice President for University Relations Fred C. Esplin:
Tel: (801) 581-4088
Fax: (801) 581-3654
Email: jyoung@park.admin.utah.edu
Those are all the relevant people I could find in a quick search. If you're a Utah State alumnus, contact Mr. Esplin, as he's in charge of alumni affairs, and let him know that you will withhold any donations until this matter is resolved satisfactorily (universities tend to pay attention when alumni are upset).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Except that the speech on the site was indeed political speech: the University is part of the state government, therefore discussions about the University, even bitch sessions, are political speech. Also note that more than political speech is protected under the first amendment.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
SOS is based in Utah, and we have different legal and cultural norms here. The first amendment (ratified by the same idiots who brought us the secon amendment) may prevail in the Federal courts, but that doesn't mean we enforce it to the same extent in the state courts.
And even if we did, it'd be irrelevant here. The first amendment exists to protect political speech, but SOS wasn't at all about political speech. It was about student life on campus, hardly the sort of important cultural discussion governments have historically suppressed and without which American democracy cannot exist. What's more, the "speech" in question was mere anonymous insults: the lowest form of speech you can get (excluding pornography and flag burning, which aren't even speech).
When the Founding Fathers broke away from England and enacted the bill of rights, they didn't intend for it to apply to this sort of situation. Heck, judging from their own passage of the "Alien and Sedition Act", they didn't even intend to protect actual political speech within their own time. And yet you come whining to slashdot to pretend that your own personal website, hosted with the bandwidth of a private university, is somehow more important?
Dan, you need to learn to distinguish between personal discomfort and political outrage. The university is well within its rights (and upholding its duty to instill good moral character within its students) when they treat your site this way. And since you could get your site hosted for $30/mo at any number of non-Utah hosting companies, I have no sympathy for you.
This is not about speech. This is not about freedom. This is just a student bitching about the "fascist administration". Nothing to see here; please move along.
FOr some reason, my father ended up with a stack of 4x6 soviet propoganda pamphlets in the early 70's. Even at 10 or so, ethey were easy to see through, but anyway . . . the Soviet constitution guaranteed free speech. Not just a negative right like ours (right not to be silenced) but as a positive right (right to forum and materials) . . . yeah, right . . .
I know this is going to sound cowardly to this crowd, but the MOST important thing to you right now, is your future.
I say, JETTISON the IP. Do ANYTHING it takes to not get expelled, cooperate in any way possible. Get your degree, and get out.
Bad experience, lesson learned. Don't fuck with fascists.
The time (and money) you've spent on your degree has got to be WAY more important than any of this other bullshit. Don't risk that because of some free-speech bullshit, you will not win this battle, and frankly, it's not worth winning in this case. Suffer the indignity, and get on with life.
There are better ways to beat this fascism, you don't have to be the martyr. Let somebody who's better positioned, better funded, and especially more idealistic, take it on the chin for this one.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Unless he signed an agreement saying that U of U owned it, it's STILL his. Please note that many universities lay claim to any copyrightable or patentable ideas or content produced by the student and the student has to sign those rights over to the school to attend. However, having said both, just because he did it "for" the school does NOT automatically make it their IP.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
As usual....IANAL, etc etc etc
Just as any research you do while at school is the property of the University you attend, I will bet you that _anything_ you create with school resources at school belongs to the school
Does this suck? Yes. Is there much you can do about it? Not likely. You need to look into the school bylaws on research and work produced. You may find out that your term papers, computer programs, and murals on the walls of the dorms all belong to the school.
I sympathize with you, but you should have looked more into the school's rules regarding such things before you tried to take a stance and made promises that it now looks like you can not keep. Good luck in extricating yourself fromt his mess. I hope it doesn't bring you down too much.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Make your case known on campus. See if you can get support from student organizations.
Universities tend to be very image conscious organizations. They feel you were making them look bad in the public eye. If you can make thier recent actions against you look worse than what they did to you, they may change their mind very quickly.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
I can understand if the server was unauthorized (server computer on residence net) or even if they were providing authorized hosting, I dont think they should be able to claim legal IP rights to the content. (for one thing, if he was running slashcode I believe all the content on the site there should be protected under the GPL?)
I can understand if they dont want association with the site - and therefore revoke hosting. I certainly do not think any record (ALL backups??!!? I would think I would have a personal backup of all of the data) should be eliminated, nor can they really prohibit the site as long as there is no logos or specifically university property used in the site.
Though i think the prescedent(sp) may speak for this one already. if there is already a policy of 'what ever was created by the student while being educated at this university is hence property of the university', which I dont think should be allowed, it may be difficult.
I know a guy who was going to RIT creating an RPG engine for profit, he already had a few customers. He was notified by university officials that the engine was entirely their property because he was developing it during his education there, and with knowledge learned there. He did not use any university resources at all to produce the game. web hosting was off site, he used his own personal computer to develop it, and still they claimed ownership.
I think this ownership issue has been discussed before in an ask slashdot article... might want to dig that up.
--onyx--
aah, the wonders of free press. I do think the internet should be treated as a free-press entity of sorts. This being in which supreme court rulings say there may be prior-review - but no prior-restraint. (not sure on the specifics of utah law - that might be a thing to look up).
I nearly took this issue up with my highschool newspaper advisor, who was doing more editing of the paper than the editors. Because of the school we were in (a famous one. i'll give you that) we had to severely tone down any sort of criticisms we had in our editorial sections. Gone was the open-forum of our editorial section, because contrivertial issues were literally thrown out by our advisor. I am not sure in which way he thought he had the power to do this, seeing as colorado (oops) has legal right to prior-review, but not to prior-restraint (as per the supreme court rulings). What he did was illegal but I did not have enough support of the rest of the staff to go ahead with a complaint. I doubt administration would have heard it anyway. (this being the administration that was 'asking people to leave' because of how they dressed (even when it was within dress code guidelines), anything they drew, wrote, or said (this being the 'new tolerant [school]')
Bah. like i posted on this same article - not sure what sort of policies where instated by the school about hosted sites, but from the sound of it he still owns his site. if he doesnt, I believe the university should do some reviewing of THEIR CONTENT.
--onyx--
Ok, academic status may not matter (although I think that's debatable), but criminal charges for 'computer crimes'? That's like charging a mechanical engineer with murder because he designed a car that someone else drove improperly, while drunk, and killed someone with!
Are you surprised? We're in a country where gun manufacturers are being sued for "wrongful death" when their products are used illegally, and where cigarette manufacturers are sued despite the clear warnings on their products.
-
Of course the big difference between professors and students is that Professors are paid to come to class and students are the ones doing the paying.
OK, OK, this is slightly off-topic (but somewhat related), but your comment:
got me to wondering... Imagine how different the computing industry might be if Harvard University had claimed copyright on Bill Gate's BASIC interpreter. I understood that he developed it on Harvard's campus computers. Of course, that wasn't a ``free speech'' issue. But some Universities don't like commercial work being done using campus facilities. Gotta wonder what Harvard's policy was back then.
Just a thought...
As for UofU's copyright claim: This seems to be common at Universities isn't it? I seem to recall that the copyright on a most theses or dissertations is held by the University where the work was done since the University is the publisher. As for UofU being rather tyrannical about their policy... What did you expect at UofU? They have a reputation for being awfully strict. I can't imagine the web site creator didn't know of their policies.
Finally...
Only the fear that word'll get around that they do this to folks hosting web pages on their servers. The sucking sound of users pulling their web sites down from an ISP that regularly practised this would be deafening. What was the big ``free'' web page site (geocities?) that tried to pull this one? They backed down rather quickly as I recall.
If I already place a copyright on all of my web pages, I wonder what legal right the ISP has then if they try to claim copyright on those pages? Any legal scholars reading this thread?
Cheers...
--
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Makes you wonder how effective the student government can be if everything that's said must be approved by the administration. You can just imagine the student govt. meeting where someone says: ``We can't approve that resolution. The administration'll just squash it without discussion.'' Wouldn't you just love being part of a puppet government? That'd give you a real feeling of making a contribution to campus life, that's for sure.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Geez. Where have you been for the last, oh, 10-15 years? Free speech hasn't existed on college campuses since the onset of the political correctness movement. I've a lot of people tell me about:
A lot of college campuses are, IMHO, a scary place nowadays. I'm extremely glad to be out of school.
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May I quote this on my web page? This is probably the most eloquent explanation of why we fight the DMCA, the RIAA, fascist universities and corporations in general that I have heard yet.
... having expressed this one it is out there for anyone to use as they see fit. If you'd like to use the expression (normally restricted under our more-than-a-little-onerous copyright law) I hereby grant you and anyone else permission to do so.
I would be very flattered. Yes, by all means you can (re)use my argument as you see fit. Ideas cannot and should not be owned
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Well, let's take a look at some of the google cached headlines, shall we?:
"Should the "U" limit its administrative terms?
(I imagine some deans were more than a little irritated by this)
Jason V. Morgan writes "According to The Utah Daily Chronicle, several deans are irked by the U's 10-year rule, an informal limit on the length an administrator can hold an appointment. Apparently, Machen's own career has followed this philosophy.
My own opinion is somewhat similar to The Chrony's: while promoting administrative turnover has its benefits, it is unwise to blindly follow an unofficial rule such as this. It contributes to the "us vs. them" mentality shared by the faculty and administration when the administration arbitrarily refuses to reappoint a dean that may be doing an effective job.
"Utah could be hurting its economoc potential"
(Mormons are notoriously ill-humored about even innocuous subjects
Oxymoronic writes "On Monday, the Los Angeles Times published this article. Apparently, many former "dot com" programmers, as well as many movie technichians, have entered into the pornography industry or at least spent some time looking into it. Unlike other industries that have tried to make it on the Internet, pornography has turned out to be very profitable. Utah's very conservative stance, embodied in the appointment of a "Porn Czar," could limit the potential for Utahns to profit from this lucrative, stable industry."
"U" School of Medicine Accused of Discrimination
(The University can't be happy about this one either)
The Utah Daily Chronicle recently ran this article reporting that an audit of the School of Computing admissions process is being pushed by Rep. Carl Saunders, R-Ogden. He has cited cases where students have been denied admission by the University of Utah School of Medicine, but have been accepted into other top-notch universities.
"Is the U insensitive to the Native American Heritage?"
(Another criticism that probably hits a little too close to home)
Today's The Chronicle View contends that the University of Utah still has some steps in order to stop degrading the Native American Heritage. While the University of Utah does much to recognize and highlight Native Americans, there are apparantly many who feel that the University of Utah's efforts are not enough. What do University of Utah students think? Log in and click on Read More... to add your thoughts to this issue.
"What do U of U students think of the war on drugs?"
(Another topic likely to deeply offend and confuse the dominant religion of the region)
Jason V. Morgan writes "A recent slashdot.org article highlighted a New York Times article (free registration required) which says that Amtrack shares information about its passengers with the DEA. This seems to be an unnecessary violation of privacy; one that weakens our fourth amendment rights. Do University of Utah students think that the war on drugs is worth these kinds of compromises and its incredible cost?"
Given the subjet matter at hand, and my own personal experience with the authoritarian nature of Mormon society (my mother and sister are Mormons, so I've seen this first hand on many occasions), it is very possible that we do in fact have the entire story and the extreme (over)reaction of the university is in fact all it has been described as. Other universities, including my own alma matar of the University of Illinois, have frequently reacted in very heavy handed fashion which, while remaining technically within the rather wide bounds granted to them by law, were nevertheless indefensible on an ethical level.
As an aside (not related to your post, but to others I have read here), the arguments that the poster should shut up and stop bitching because he has no constitutional rights on private property are particularly disturbing, and the main reason I ultimately rejected the Libertarian stance on social issues. A nation in which one's rights end at the edge of the public sidewalk, in a country as privatized is this, is not a very free nation at all. How much of your life do you spend on private property vs. public property, and how many rights do you assume you have that, according to such an argument, you in fact do not? I type this message right now, sitting on private property. I excersize my freedom of speech on my lunch hour, yet these people would argue that firing my sorry ass would be just fine (if I were to offend my employer), simply because although it is my time, it is my employer's network to which my laptop is connected and across which the bytestream passes.
If this is the kind of world they wish to advocate, then I want nothing of it. And, I suspect, our founding fathers would feel similarly.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Sorry, but you have no right to use of university property for your speach. You have the right to free speach, but you don't have some right to be published by others. Unless you foot the bill to publish teh site and pay the costs of operation, you don't have the expectation of remaining uncensored. Further, it isn't an abuse of the first ammendment to censor content. We all censor content all the time. Slashdot doesn't post every story it receives, for example. There is no issue here other than a some young kid forgot that he wasn't paying the server bill and thought that the university was obligated to host his site for him through their connection. He then found out that when he didn't listen to the univesity officials that they actually had the power to do something about his impudence. Sorry, but I don't cry for dummies. The fist ammendment says that the government can not censor you. It doesn't say that private institutions (and universities are that) have no rights to censor themselves. With luck you learn something and get into another school and get on with your life.
OK, I can see them yanking your site if they didn't like it. Their servers, their right to what's on them. However, pressing criminal charges and having you banned from campus seems a little harsh. They could at least have slapped your wrist first and talked to you about it.
According to the article, they _did_ ask him repeatedly to remove material they found objectionable. He refused repeatedly. Criminal charges are still a bit harsh (they could have just replaced him as the site administrator), but it isn't as if he had no previous contact at all.
I wonder how many of us have been threatened with lawsuits by our educational institutions because of Internet activities? Or by individuals?
I personally was threatened with criminal and civil action by the University of Kansas back in 1995 because of a website on a school computer. It was very hard for me, as a 19 year-old, to take. I was scared.
The second time I was threatened with civil action was by a student's lawyer-dad and I was scared.
The third time I was threatened with civil action was from a competitor with a lawyer-sister. By that point, I wasn't scared any more.
Kind of like meeting the police. They scared the shit out of me the first few times. Last time they came to my door was 97 and I didn't let them in. All I said, standing in my door, was "I'm not going to talk to you" over and over and over again, as the guy got more and more pissed off. He went away, just like the losers threatening civil suits.
I think a lot of dealing with lawyers and police is standing your ground and saying nothing.
In the case of this Utah fiasco, I think any lawyer will be able to get him his degree, but since his site was on a uni network and server, he's kind of out of luck. As I learned from Kansas, any state funded school is going to be really protective of their servers and network, because once a website is even remotely publically funded, a lot of people have asses to cover if a webpage served says something un-pc.
It's probably time for him to cut his losses, and walk away, fighting only for his degree. (free speech aside because there is no free speech when you're borrowing a soapbox)
The school may not have an obligation to award him credit for transfer. Remember that transcripts are sent from school to school and sealed with the school seal.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
In a certain sense, the school may be committing a crime by destroying evidence - they could have only kept the parts that made him look culpable and erased the rest. Why is it when some hacker gets arrested, the FBI or the police keep his machines for years, but the University in this case gets to copy off all of the data, erase the disks (sounds like a coverup to me) and put the machine back in service? If I were this guy's lawyer I know that I would try to get anything transferred off of the original media disbarred in court - you never know who's tampered with it at that point.
On the plus side, the school's ham-handedness may end up keeping the guy out of real trouble.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
People claim all sorts of things. I'm not at all sure that one should believe what they say just because they claim something. The most cogent advice so far was the guy who said "Get a lawyer!". If you don't have a lawyer, then they don't have to pay any attention to the rules. If what has been said earlier is correct, then they haven't been paying any attention.
Universities have a history of running roughshod over students, and then claiming that it was their right. If you don't have any power to stand up to them, then they can get away with anything the cops will allow. And they do. I've seen it happen.
A lawyer may or may not help. If you get a good one, he will at least tell you if you have a reasonable chance. And sometimes the mere threat of a lawsuit will make them back down.
OTOH: This is likely to affect any grades you are given in the future. Make sure that you have your lawyer get a copy of your transcript, and other public records, so that nothing happens to them. Things have been know to become lost. And make sure that you keep copies, possibly notarized, in at least two places that are reasonably secure. Don't depend on one. Universities have been know to get around banks just by requesting. So don't have your only evidence in just one bank vault. (Your lawyer will probably have ideas as to what appropriate steps are.)
If win, you will still probably want to transfer to another college. You won't be able to trust the administration to be at all fair about things, and even some professors could carry a grudge (and you won't know which ones). So make sure that you get all the necessary letters, forms, etc. And this should probably be arranged by you lawyer.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Are you sure that the student government is a part of the university? Where I went to school they were legally separate entities. The university did a lot of bullying though, and could get away with it because they had the bulk of the power, and the definite sympathies of the power structure. Students paid money to the student government, but the university at one point talked the bank into seizing the account so that the student government couldn't hire a lawyer, things like that.
... you fill it in. Many of the people in it are good, but it tends to be run by petty tyrants and political yes-men. So it doesn't matter how kindly the clerk that you deal with is. That isn't the person setting the policy.
I wouldn't trust a university administration as far as
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Any lawyers out there?
Every so often someone on slashdot points out helpfully that the government cannot own intellectual property. All intellectual property produced by the goverment is in the public domain. This is why the government cannot produce GPL code.
Does this not apply to public universities somehow? If the university owns his code, then isn't it in the public domain?
I realize many universities have sold their research to private companies, I'm just not sure if public universities have been able to do this.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Somehow I doubt that. The audio isn't listed on the NPR's web site. (although that doesn't necessarily mean the brodcast wasn't made)
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
First some background, I am a computer science student at a well know Engineering school in California (Cal Poly). Since last spring I have been the only student representative on the policy committee in charge of creating a university wide computing policy. This policy was recently signed and put into effect (a whole other story about students not being informed etc exists, but I'll skip that.)
I am ashamed to have my name associated with the tripe that is not official computing policy at Cal Poly. Some of the better points include:
-No port scanning (This pissed me off royally, not because I think people should randomly scan computers, but because it was implied that port scanning of any type was wrong)
-All data on any campus resources belongs to the school. This includes anything stored on school computers, and the working implies anything connected to the campus network.
-The school has the right to seize any and all data for "authorized" investigations. (Authorized was NEVER defined anywhere, for all we know anyone could walk in and ask for our data.)
-The school reserves the right to remove access at any time.
Most of the crap I had to deal with in our school policy came form the fact that the university is a state institution and had to follow certain "regulations" that all state institutions had to follow. I am no legal expert and have no idea what the laws in Utah look like, but it is very likely that as awful as it may sound that school could be perfectly within their rights to take and destroy the entire site.
I wish this guy luck, you're gonna need it.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Find like-minded Alumni. Organize them. Then have them complain to both the Alumni Association and the University itself. And have them threaten to cut off all future donations.
It's the advice of the late Robert A. Heinlein...:
It's dirty pool, but VERY effective. . . .
They say the content all belongs to them? Let them have it. Insist it was their's all along. So the school is responcible for the offencive content.
:(
Probally won't work, though.
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Do you think that such a site was useful to the university community? In retrospect, was running it enjoyable?
Currently my university has a mish-mash of simple forums, public newsgroups, etc. After reading this Ask /. I've been wondering if I should set something like this up myself. Comments?
SOS is based in Utah, and we have different legal and cultural norms here. The first amendment (ratified by the same idiots who brought us the secon amendment) may prevail in the Federal courts, but that doesn't mean we enforce it to the same extent in the state courts.
The University of Utah is a public university, which means that the laws that apply to the state government apply to it. Utah, despite your touchingly naive belief, does not have an exemption from the 14th Amendment, which requires state governments to extend the same constitutional protections that the federal government does. Thus, the first amendment does apply here, and any Utah court which thinks it is a exception will find itself bitchslapped by the federal courts when the case moves into them.
And even if we did, it'd be irrelevant here. The first amendment exists to protect political speech, but SOS wasn't at all about political speech. It was about student life on campus, hardly the sort of important cultural discussion governments have historically suppressed and without which American democracy cannot exist..
The first amendment covers all forms of speech; the framers and the courts wisely recognized that attempts to limit to to 'important' speech would limit speech to that liked by those doing the defining.
What's more, the "speech" in question was mere anonymous insults: the lowest form of speech you can get (excluding pornography and flag burning, which aren't even speech).
This is a troll, surely? Street vs. New York (394US576, 1969), Texas vs. Johnson (491US397,1989): Flag burning is explicitly speech and protected under the 1st Amendment. "The government may not prohibit, the expression of an idea because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Pornography is also covered by the 1st amendment; child pornography is not, and obscenity is not, but pornography != obscenity. Insults are also covered as long as they do not fall to the level of actual defamation (not covered.)
When the Founding Fathers broke away from England and enacted the bill of rights, they didn't intend for it to apply to this sort of situation. Heck, judging from their own passage of the "Alien and Sedition Act", they didn't even intend to protect actual political speech within their own time. And yet you come whining to slashdot to pretend that your own personal website, hosted with the bandwidth of a private university, is somehow more important?
Okay it *is* a troll, no one who knows the Alien and Sedition acts could be this dumb. For the rest of you: the Alien and Sedition acts lost the Federalists the next election, the acts were repealed under Jefferson, and the Supreme Court has smacked down any later attempts at the same thing. As above, University of Utah is *not* a private university, and thus is bound by the strictures of the Bill of Rights.
Dan, you need to learn to distinguish between personal discomfort and political outrage. The university is well within its rights (and upholding its duty to instill good moral character within its students) when they treat your site this way. And since you could get your site hosted for $30/mo at any number of non-Utah hosting companies, I have no sympathy for you.
...or possibly it's just someone with a personal axe to grind. While the usual 'freedom of the press goes to those who own them' may apply here, it also may not. Someone with a better constitutional law background than me can speculate on whether Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va. (515US819,837) would apply if the university gives similiar space to other 'publications'.
This is not about speech. This is not about freedom. This is just a student bitching about the "fascist administration". Nothing to see here; please move along.
Like other people, I have severe suspicions that there is More To This Story, but maybe the administrators are just as ignorant as this post, and this really *is* all the story.
If I were this guy I'd just pop a few Valiums, forget the whole thing and finish my degree.
The problem is if he's expelled, he loses all of his college credits which he worked so hard for. I would definitely fight the university on this one, with legal help of some sort. If the university won't allow him to return to campus, maybe he can cut a deal where he can "voluntarily withdraw" from the university and keep his credits. It sucks, but at least he can finish his degree. I'd write off the weblog, since it was made on university systems for the university, but criminal charges and severe sanctions are absolutely uncalled for.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
As for computer crimes, I'd love to know what computer crimes have been comitted. Presumable, if and when charges are filed, all of this will become a matter of public record, and the university can expel the student for merely having charges broght against him, but the million dollar question is What charges could be filed in this case?
Supposedly, flikx is being investigated for making threats against various school officials because some script kiddies forged some email to make it appear to come from him. Any defense attorney who is even vaguely competent would be able to get these charges dropped, since it is so ridiculously easy to forge email return addresses these days, and a quick examination of the Received: headers of the emails in question would probably be enough to show the emails were faked.
The criminal charges are on extremely flimsy evidence, so U.U. would put themselves in a bad position if they expelled flikx based on that evidence. At best, they might be able to get him for "posting inappropriate content using University resources," which doesn't justify an expulsion.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
As an aside (not related to your post, but to others I have read here), the arguments that the poster should shut up and stop bitching because he has no constitutional rights on private property are particularly disturbing, and the main reason I ultimately rejected the Libertarian stance on social issues. A nation in which one's rights end at the edge of the public sidewalk, in a country as privatized is this, is not a very free nation at all. How much of your life do you spend on private property vs. public property, and how many rights do you assume you have that, according to such an argument, you in fact do not? I type this message right now, sitting on private property. I excersize my freedom of speech on my lunch hour, yet these people would argue that firing my sorry ass would be just fine (if I were to offend my employer), simply because although it is my time, it is my employer's network to which my laptop is connected and across which the bytestream passes.
If this is the kind of world they wish to advocate, then I want nothing of it. And, I suspect, our founding fathers would feel similarly.
May I quote this on my web page? This is probably the most eloquent explanation of why we fight the DMCA, the RIAA, fascist universities and corporations in general that I have heard yet.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
If you're really curious how I felt about it at the time that I ceased to run it, goto RumorsDaily.com and look at the source code.
The short answer is, yes, if you can make a site that's succesful and incorporates both news and opinion it's definately worth it. I got to know a lot of people who I otherwise would not have and it gave me access to the school, and the ability to raise issues that never would have been done otherwise. The downside, and what you have to find a way to avoid, is the awful spiral that occured when the site became too popular. When the main thrust of the users shifted from the campus intelligentsia to the campus riff-raff, the signal to noise ratio fell dramatically. It became an intolerant bastion for insults and gay jokes... something which you can brush off for a while, but eventually became too grating for me to handle every day.
It's got tremendous upsides and tremendous downsides. I would suggest you do it, because no matter what else, it will always be an experience to have... I can't tell you what it's like to be awakened on Sunday morning by the Secret Service, but I wouldn't give up that experience for anything today.
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RumorsDaily
If you're really curious how I felt about it at the time that I ceased to run it, goto RumorsDaily.com and look at the source code.
The short answer is, yes, if you can make a site that's succesful and incorporates both news and opinion it's definately worth it. I got to know a lot of people who I otherwise would not have and it gave me access to the school, and the ability to raise issues that never would have been done otherwise. The downside, and what you have to find a way to avoid, is the awful spiral that occured when the site became too popular. When the main thrust of the users shifted from the campus intelligentsia to the campus riff-raff, the signal to noise ratio fell dramatically. It became an intolerant bastion for insults and gay jokes... something which you can brush off for a while, but eventually became too grating for me to handle every day.
It's got tremendous upsides and tremendous downsides. I would suggest you do it, because no matter what else, it will always be an experience to have... I can't tell you what it's like to be awakened on Sunday morning by the Secret Service, but I wouldn't give up that experience for anything today.
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RumorsDaily
I once ran a similar site at RumorsDaily.com (it's since been disbanded due to my graduation). It started as a sort of underground news source, mainly focusing on Student Government and later on expanded to all sorts of student opinion and online discussion at Tufts University.
I was personally threatened with lawsuits from students twice, and was personally visited by the Secret Service once (someone threatened Al Gore's life). The school was very unhappy about the whole concept of open student opinion and once or twice made veiled criticisms. The school's Daily paper made some low level threats at a lawsuit as well.
Basically, what I'm saying is that it's a very treacherous ground you tread upon when you start giving people in real world community the ability to attack each other anonymously in an online community. I eventually set up a list of posting guidelines which is very loosely enforced... my rule eventually became, if the person is not a public figure, don't talk about them. If they are a public figure, you can talk about whatever you like, just don't threaten or impersonate them. (I always felt dirty the few times that I removed posts, but I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of a lawsuit that I assumed I would lose).
I'm not really sure why I chimed in, but I wanted to support anyone else who's tried to run this sort of site. You get a lot of flak and you spend a lot of time to make something that people enjoy using, and then you get beaten upon, criticized and eventually shut down, all because people fail to get along. It's really a shame. My site grew to about 1000 hits a day before I removed it from the public discourse, I know what it's like.
I however, early on made the decision to get my site OFF the University's equipment and onto my own server offsite. This way the school had no grounds for officially shutting down the site, or making off with the server. They had no control over a site operating off school grounds, Acceptable Use Policy or no.
So I guess that's my ultimate suggestion, if you're going to do something like this
Good luck in the future to anyone who tries this... I personally found it very rewarding, but it took a lot of suffering.
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--
RumorsDaily
Boy, it's hard to get more wrong than this.
.. then wouldn't that mean that webhosting companies own all of the IP in the sites that they host? that can't be true. that's not true.)
The intellectual property created here does not belong to the U of U, unless it was created by their employees, or assigned to them in writing.
Now, the computers holding the intellectual property might belong to the U of U - and as a result, they may be in a position to erase it, or deny access to others - but they do not hold the copyright (or trademark, or patent, or trade secret) rights in it.
The Slashcode elements of the IP remain the property of Slashcode's creators and assignees.
The modifications, customizations, etc., prepared by the admin during his 2000 hours of work belong to him.
The messages posted by users belong to them.
Possession or ownership of storage media which contains bits which represent intellectual property is not even close to the same thing as owning the rights to the intellectual property.
The fact that the U of U's name appears on the site might subject the site's creator to trademark claims from the U of U, if he didn't get permission - but it doesn't act to change the underlying ownership in messages, site configuration & customization, etc., to the U of U, nor does ownership of the machines.
(if owning the machine which hosts a website means ownership of the website
First thing: get a lawyer if you can. Most Universities (esp those with a law program) have some kind of legal aid for students. There is a certain amount of irony in using University resources against them. You might even find a law prof that is sympathetic and would enjoy sticking it to the University. Your student society would probably provide a laywer if you were a volunteer for them while doing this stuff.
I don't see any reasonable way that the University can claim to own your content. Even University employees have pretty liberal contracts about ownership of the results of "Outside activities". If you're just a student, there should be even less of a connection.
You should be able to find somebody inside the school that will be on your side. If there's one thing that academics hate, it's being told what to think. You'll find someone sympathetic to champion your cause somewhere.
Start with the administration. Your student society should have a good idea of who would be sympathetic. If there's a Dean of Students or something, try that person.
Talk to your school's Faculty association (or union, whatever). Usually, these groups are quite good at realizing "If it's a student now, it could be us next." and might be willing to say a few words on your behalf.
Student newspapers usually tend to swing to the left and will probably adopt a favourable editorial stance if you sound like a reasonable student who just got smoked by the admin.
Keep up the good fight. University administrators, especially those who like to beat up on "academic freedom" (two words you should say every chance you get) tend to learn quickly how much power they actually have, which isn't much. It's too bad you're the one on the receiving end, though.
Greg
Well, if they kicked him out of school for starting some no-drinking campain, yes. Remember context is important :)
Get thee to a lawyer. As someone else said, ignore what everyone else has said until you have talked to a lawyer.
I'd write off the site if I were you, at least for now. Focus on saving your degree. Once you've got that and are out of the university then you can tell them to piss up a rope.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
the first line of this post's parent post -- THEN WHY IS HE BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE -- is the most key issue the kid has.
;) would be laughable.
There are two possibilities.
#1 The kid owns the content.
#2 The kid does NOT own the content.
Any judge or jury would agree. The prosecution MUST pick one or the other--to assert both #1 & #2 (or 1 ^ 2 if you are a mathematician
Ok, then what does #1 imply?
#1 => His property (intellectual) was taken away from him unjustly and illegally. Any judge or jury would agree that this logically follows *ASSUMING IT BELONGS TO HIM*
Ok, what does #2 imply?
#2 => His property was NOT taken away. (The content does not belong to him.) An individual is not responsible for other people's property. Any judge or jury would agree with this.
Next, the defense should point out that the prosecution, by saying:
A. The kids property (content) was not taken away
and
B. The kid is responsible for the content
is committing a logical fallacy.
If they University wants to take away the content, claim the kid doesn't own it, and not punish him, I don't have a problem.
Similarly, if they want to let him KEEP THE I.P., say he owns it, and hold him accountable for it, then I also do not have a (logical/philosophical) problem. I am not going to argue whether or not he violated the handbook policy.
Anyway I am a lowly mathematics student, but as I understand it, isnt this the business GOOD defense attourneys are in? To point out (or in some cases to create, depending on whos got the big bucks heh) logical fallacies in order to get people aquitted?
I pray that the people responsible for this kids fate have a basic grasp of logical principles.. but I am not so hopeful =(
James Blachly
I see your point (it is quite valid) but I was viewing the gentleman in question's "offending material" as sort of a THING in which he took a passive / omissive role in "doing something wrong"
In the example you present, the "offending material" is an ACTION (cf thing) and the sinister programmer has taken an active / commissive role.
So I see the point youre making, and I should have made the distinction clear.
So if the guy is guilty of anything, its of omission--I certainly do not think he is guilty of commision of an overtly illegal act.
Anyway what I'm blabbering about is this, perhaps my proof is incorrect, but not to the degree that you assert. I should have been more clear / offered caveats to my statement "he is not responsible for something he doesn't own".
Thanks for the thoughts!!
James
...that you're probably screwed. It's not fair, but from what I can tell, you're boned. Were you using the school's computers to host the site? Were you using the school's network? You're out of luck. For sure, make a stink, get your story heard, get the word about the Mormon fascists out there, but don't expect any resolution in your favor on this one.
Clearly, YANALTYLTTYA (You are not a lawyer, though you like to think you are). You seem to have no grasp of IP law, nor do you understand the free speech issues.
Based on your repeated arguments, any website hosted on a university website belongs to the university. Hmmm... You might want to let Stanford (or was it berkley?), since they would own Yahoo! based on this reasoning.
The AUP & disclaimer cited by others clearly states that the university does not own, control, or actively monitor the material on student websites. The fact that flikx created this cite as a courtesy to the university community does not mean that he created it for the university. That's like saying that since Taco created slashdot as a service to the Linux community, Linus now owns it.
Obviously, we do not know the whole story here. It's entirely possible that Flikx left out some important details. But, based on what has been said, it sounds like the university is bullying him knowing that he can't really fight to hard-- not with his degree on the line.
And, to be fair, IANAL either.
You're saying that these two statements are mutually exclusive:
1. he does not own the content
2. he is responsible for the content.
This conclusion is actually very wrong. Image this:
You are writing software for you're company, on their time and with salary from them. The code belongs to them and not you. Correct? If so, statement 1 is true.
Are you claiming that what you wrote is not your responsibility?
What if you deliberately added in a backdoor in the code, which none of the other workers spotted because you write really dirty code.
Is is possible for the company to sue you because they lost a lot of money because of what you did. Correct?
If so, statement 2 is true.
Both statements are true, which you stated was impossible.
The next one, may have other legal issues than purely logical. I'm just arguing the logic, as I am not a lawyer.
If the university has a policy that all things put up on their servers are their property, this means that something you put up is their property, and not your own. But what you put up there may actually be illegal.
You most certainly is responsible for putting it up there, and you most certainly do not own it. Thus your logic fails yet again.
To clarify, I am morally against what has happened here, and I don't even think it is legal (again, IANAL), but your "proof" is not valid.
The site lists people who are in the department of the president. You can scroll down there and get the names and titles of everyone you want to write to. Yes, that includes the legal advisor to the university president, if you so choose.
Cc: "Liz McCoy"
Subject: RE: Publication of University's Censorship
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 11:56:30 -0600
Dear Josh,
Thank you for your note regarding the allegations of censorship from a student at the U. There are significant omissions and serious misrepresentations in the student's report of the matter concerning the University's SOS Web site. This is a matter, however, that is being dealt with by the administration through the student behavior process. The University is taking this issue very seriously. We are confident the administration and the school's student association are taking the necessary steps to resolve this issue appropriately.
Fred Esplin
Vice President for University Relations
That's a really good point; it's similar at the university I attend, where student government is very autonomous from the actual university administration. They, not the university, run the bookstore, for instance.
In flikx's case, that distinction could be extremely important. Because he volunteered his work and put the site on servers that appear to be run by the student government, he could have some legal leverage to tell the admin to back off.
I would also be interested in hearing how the U of U justified claiming copyright to the site. Surely it's not enough that they hosted it?
Oh yeah, and to everyone who believe this to be further evidence that Utah is a backwater monarchy, grow up and get your own opinion. Utah is still a whole lot bigger and more varied than the view allowed by your office window.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The only involvement the university had was hosting the site and buying the server, that's it.
So you're saying, in essense, "They paid for the server, the building it was located in, and the network infrastructure that it used", but that's it.
That, unfortunately for you, is quite enough. Unless you had explicit written permission to do what you did, your legal standing is the same as that of an artist who painted a picture on the side of somebody else's building. You have no right to complain when they wash the building and wipe away your "speech".
The lesson: get permission for everything in advance and in writing.
--
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
What about the Second Amendment?
What about the Tenth Amendment?
Maintain a questioning attitude
I believe Juanita
The University of Utah, as do most universities, has a code of conduct. If he violated it, then they have no obligation to support his speech by lending him their servers, bandwidth, domain name, etc.
That would be OK, if they would allow him to restart the site elsewhere. However, they're not; the U has actually claimed IP rights over the entire site - all of Dan's work, all of the stories, and all of the comments posted by users. He has been threatened with legal action if he tries to restart the site elsewhere using his offsite backups. I could see that particular action being legal (if hard to swallow) were Dan paid to create the site under University sanction...but he didn't. He did it voluntarily for the student government.
Flikx is not being oppressed, he simply lost the support of those sponsoring him (through use of their equipment), and he must find another sponsor.
As I mentioned above, he very clearly is being oppressed, since the University won't let him find another sponsor.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I think this story is ridiculously one-sided and contains a minimum of useful information. What exactly are 'Pure politics'? What kind of abuse was it specifically? Was he given fair warning? What rules were layed down when he started this project? And for that matter, what the heck was the site's content exactly?
It does sound like a pretty harsh deal here, but before we start ranting and raving about the general principles at stake here, how about some specifics about what led to all of this extreme action on the University's part?
then your not thirsty enough.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
I know this is off the main topic, but what's behind that comment about "having to start over as a freshman" if the university does expel him?
Undergraduate credit at accredited universities usually transfers to other accredited universities. There might be some duplication of effort if the course content doesn't match well, but Mechanical Engineering is one of those areas where you won't see much divergence - there will probably be more time spent meeting residency requirements than retaking familiar courses.
Obviously it would be best to finish the current program, but it's not impossible to change programs. And if the university expelled you without following due process (SEE A LAWYER NOW) any settlement would reasonably include extra costs associated with finishing your degree elsewhere - out-of-state tuition until completion of the degree, relocation expenses, accured interest on student loans, etc. Even if they back off, the administration might have added in such bad faith that it's more reasonable to take the $20k (say) and finish the degree elsewhere than to stay there and risk someone putting a lot of effort into "proving" how they were right about you.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
As a student at the University of Utah, I took it upon myself to fire off an e-mail to the President's office, to get their point of view on the issue and to make clear that I am less than pleased. I recommend all the UU students who feel strongly about this issue do the same; I doubt, though, that non-students writing in would be well received, so I shan't post an e-mail address here.
Whenever I get a reply, I'll post it in reply to this, so if you're interested, check back in a day or three.
I've had this sig for three days.
In regards to this story being fake, I can confirm that this is not the case. I have been in touch with the Dean of Students, who is apparently in charge of handling this matter. While I haven't yet received an official response about the U's position (I'll post it as soon as I get it), I can very much confirm that this is real.
I've had this sig for three days.
On the net:0 10 420_eff_2themart_pr.html
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/2TheMart_case/20
More generally:
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/mcintyre.html
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
BTW, the site is scheduled to go up at Bisonpride.com, under the watchful eye of gogeek.org
Heh, we yanked the URL right out from under them...
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Co-founder of GerbilMechs
...I do not think it means what you think it means (for some blatant karma whoring).
/. eds and some of the peanut gallery) doesn't mean you can say anything you like, or that you can publish anything you like. Take some more obvious examples:
Free speech (despite the opinions of some of the
i) You cannot walk up to someone and say "Do you have some drugs".
ii) You cannot publish a list of where and when to stand on a particular street corner to get cheap goods if you know there is a very good probability that those goods have been stolen.
iii) You cannot (in your own privacy) group together with like minded individuals for the purpose of committing a crime (say assassinating the president).
iv) You cannot publish information the government has deemed sensitive.
[Note that (ii) above is actually very similar to what Napster does, or used to do before filters]
Basically, while you have the right to say anything you like in an abstract sense you do NOT have the right to say anything you like at all. The primary right to free speech is the right to criticize the government and publicly state what you feel would be a better way of doing things - when that right is removed you do not have a democratic system anymore.
In the case mentioned in this article there isn't even an issue of free speech involved. Someone has donated work to the university and the university has decided that work is now inappropriate. The UNIVERSITY owns the work and can do whatever the hell it likes. If the offsite backups are used then the university has the right to sue for theft of its property. Face it - the site will NEVER get back up.
As for the criminal charges: I can only assume there is more to the story - probably something to do with access to backups, or theft of some computer media (ie tapes)?
When are people going to learn that while a democracy preserves some rights, it also limits those rights with an individuals responsibility to the society as a whole. Democracy is NOT anarchy and never will be. The sooner people grow up and learn what responsibility is the better!
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
After all we all know how unbiased Slashdot is, and the agrieved party can not by any means be considered an objective voice in the matter.
Flikx seems to have left out a lot of detail. The University is having a problem with some of the content of the side because of a threat of legal action. What was the nature of the 'inappopiate content'? Flikx never says. He just says that it is nothing by slashdot standards.
What flikx doesn't mention was that SOS wasn't a server that he was setting something up on for fun, nor was it a part of his education. He was voluntering for what appears by the google cache pages to have been an official university site.
Since it is a site that is meant to reflect on the university, the university has a right to see to it that there is nothing on there that could cause legal troubles. They didn't appear to have a problem with criticism, just with some posts with inappropiate content of an unspecified nature.
Then flikx starts to become very unclear. He is forced to implement censorship. Notice how the slashdot crowd goes nuts over this word, but if I own a server, I have the right to say what is stored on it, so does a university. Compare policies of student home pages to policies for official pages. Since SOS was quasi-offical, the university was compelled (apparently legally) to moderate the content to a degree.
Then a new administrator comes, and he doesn't like the SOS server. Since flikx has put in a lot of work he is understandably upset when the SOS server is going to go away.
He doesn't specify why it's getting pulled, only that it's 'politics' and some forged emails. I would suspect that the current diciplinary action against flikx is about the emails, not about the server.
Since there was a legal problem with the server, it is obvious that evidence would be collected from it, and the other data removed. After all why have a perfectly good computer sitting around doing nothing. As for the backups, why keep something backed up if you are never going to use it? Tapes cost money.
They also have grounds for not allowing flikx to set up the server somewhere else. After all the server was for the student government, an official university body. Since it was done for that purpose, it is not unthinkable that the university would leagally own the copyright to whatever was ont the server.
I suspect that the other problems flikx is having are more due to the forged emails. Since they appeared to come from flikx the university is understandably suspicious that he might have actually sent them. I think they are over reacting, but we should be used to this, people who don't understand technolgy usually tend to over react to possible tecnological threats. What would be suprising is a reasonable reaction.
Supposing for a moment that flikx did sent the email, the university would be well within their rights to ban him from campus, expell him, and even press criminal charges, so that reaction although excessive without more proof, it is understandable.
What the slashdot crowd generally fails to understand is that freedom of speech does not mean that I have he absolute right to say any thing I want wherever I want whenever I want, using whatever resoruces I want. Nor does it mean that even if I do have the right to say something in a particular venue that I should be excused from any possible repercussions from what I've said.
With the right to speech comes responsibility. If I annoy the wrong people they can make my life hard. That is a simple fact of life. Not all forms of speech are protected, nor are all forums equal in what kinds of things can be said.
Had Flikx implemented something like that using his own personal web page (at least at my school), it would have been protected. Students' web pages have some regulations on them, but not to the degree that something that is supposed to look official does.
Flikx is of course upset that all of the work he did went away, and now he can't even show it off, but why implement a service to the student government somewhere else? That wouldn't make much sense.
Advice to Flikx is to check with a lawyer, but worry more about getting the diploma. They didn't kill your page, they killed a their page that you had responisibility for.
Also note that in posting this to slashdot you may have seriously hurt your case. It sounds kind of whiny and tired.
Questions for Flikx:
What was the nature of the 'inappopiate material?'
Why did the administration change?
Why did they decide to get rid of SOS? (politics isn't a good answer).
What is the UofU side of the story?
Are you being expelled because of the server or the email? If the server, what is the exact charge?
It is very likely that the University of Utah overreacted in this issue, but much of what they did appears to be justifyed:
Shutting down one of their websites. It may suck, but if I own the server and the network access, I have a right to say what will be on it. Particularly since there was threat of legal action against the university.
Distruction of the data seemed strange at first, but the server is likely going to be used elsewhare, and i'm pretty sure that my university wouldn't keep mass numbers of backup tapes around in a similar situation. Those tapes can be reused.
Flikx implied that the pending expulsion was somehow related to the SOS server, but I get the impression that it was more due to the email, if that is the case, then the University overreacted, but not nearly as much as it appears from the article.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
It would make sense, that if the University did not like the site they could most probably stop hosting it... However, eliminating all backups and trying to expel you is almost surely out of the realm of how far they can go...
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
This was a slash clone. Not all of the work was his, a lot was other students and probably a handfull of off campus people too.. Those hadnful of off campus people have never signed an agreement with the school, and have had their work stolen from them and the school claim it as their own.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Umm...
:)
You guys to realize that the term "Slash" also refers to homosexual erotic fan fiction...
From the article above:
"Slash" is fan fiction that focuses on a romantic and/or sexual relationship between two characters of the same sex.
The majority of slash is male/male stories written by women with other women as the intended audience.
Well, it's what I read when I saw "Censored Slash Sites".. There's a HUGE slash community out there online. There's been a fair bit of slash site censoring going on in that area as well...
So lets all stand up together and defend those censored slash sites!!!! Hail the power of slashdot!
As a sidenote, my wife once noticed a post with an aggrivated poster making the comment: "I thought of a really great name for a slash site, but 'slashdot' is already taken by some stupid geek site!"
...to piss them off so they'd do that. what was the final blow that made the university step in. usually its something they don't like that makes them look bad, or some complaint about how stuff works. honestly that whole expulsion thing is a load of crap. if they just were worried about bandwidth they would have just shut him down...not had the cops come and take his stuff and ERASE IT! thats way outta line. it he was running a pr0n/warez server out of his dorm room i could understand the universities desire to press that sort of action. but he was simply running an open forum for students. isn't there some law that says universities cannot supress a students rights? especially freedom of speech (or our twist on that i guess).
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
+5. This is likely to be the best advice on this thread. Clearly there are many details we don't know about, and any legal comments made here will probably have only an accidental relationship to reality.
Get a lawyer, and do whatever you have to to graduate.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
"Only the fear that word'll get around that they do this to folks hosting web pages on their servers."
If you are using a decent web hosting company, the other thing that prevents them from claiming your content as their property is having it written in the user agreement that your content is your property. I would never host with a company that says less or doesn't say at all.
As far as this particular university case goes, though, I have absolutely no sympathy. It was their servers. It was their network. Therefore, websitedude was playing by their rules, whether he felt that way or not. "He who has the gold makes the rules"...and it was their gold.
Most, if not all, slashdoters would take great offense at someone coming on to their property telling them how to use a computer system they own. Yet a lot of slashdoters also seem to have no problem telling someone else who owns a computer (in this case, the university) how to run their systems.
If ya don't like the school policies, or don't want the school to try to control things, then buy your own friggin server with your own dimes.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It was just proven today that I did not send the threat at all. So I'm more or less in the clear on that just from things that transpired this day.
well, good. i hope that you end up graduating successfully. past that, i hope you continue to raise hell. good luck.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
"I'm also suspended indefinately, and face immediate expulsion from the University."
I'm confused by the fact that you seem to be putting ownership of the site and your possible expulsion in the same bag. To me, the two issues are very different. Graduating is way more important. And as long as they've got that paper over you, they are God. Don't ever think the law comes into play. My advice is to suck it up, write an apology, secretly get what legal & PR advice you can afford, and do whatever it takes to get your degree.
Once you're gone, you can worry about starting up the site again, and who owns it, and whatnot. Once you're out of the state's jurisdiction, have a lawyer, and anonymous hosting in, say, Sealand, you can be as big a pain in the ass to them as you want. Right now you're a bug they can crush. The only chance you've got is to apologize and make them look bad in the public eye for expelling an innocent student.
You need that degree, man. You don't want to start over, trust me.
P.S. some more detail on the actual charges, any acceptable use policies you may or may not have violated, etc., would be useful to us readers.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
For those of you who are wondering what the administration is all upset about, I give you what I believe to be my first clue about that.
Follow their Network Connection Acceptable Use Policy to their Information Resources Policy to their Student Rights Section and read this:
E. Freedom from Discrimination and Sexual Harassment. Students have a right to be free from illegal discrimination and sexual harassment. University policy prohibits discrimination, harassment or prejudicial treatment of a student because of his/her race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, or status as an individual with a disability, disabled veteran, or veteran of the Vietnam era.
If I were a university administrator, taking down this site would be like shooting fish in a barrel. They don't have to be troubled by the fact that the administrator didn't write the offending posts, that's just an administrative detail to them.
The question is whether they're living up to part D of the student rights in expelling him:
D. Due Process. Students have a right to due process in any disciplinary matter involving the possibility of substantial sanctions. This includes a right to be heard, a right to decision and review by impartial persons or bodies, and a right to adequate notice.
But since we haven't been provided any of the details as to the charges he's facing, we can't really speak to that.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
If the people who posted to SlashDot all paid for use of the site (tuition), agreed wether implicitly or explicitly to abide by it's rules (University code of conduct which, yes, somewhere in the vast amount of paperwork when you enter a school you sign an agreement to), and then did something contrary to those rules, SlashDot could complain and do all sorts of things. Fortunately, the important parts of that process in /. land bear no resemblance to what happenes in University land, so the two are hardly comparable.
Okay, the statement above was "So because they don't support his speech they are allowed to sue him, expel him and confisctate his intelectual property?". We need to separate the issues. They ARE allowed to sue him and expel him. Libel laws and the myriad student/university agreements undoubtedly allow this. The question is of the Intellectual Property, and I'd wager that there's a fair chance that in the university's guidelines (to which the student implicitly agreed at some point), intellectual property generated on the school's computers or by employees as part of a school organization (even if the work is volunteer), becomes the property of the University. I've certailnly seen stranger agreements before. I'm not saying it's right; the University system needs to be mended if this sort of thing happens, but it may mean that in this case, the University is legally justified.
Should U of U sue Google for still having the site in cache?
Previously referenced Google cache
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
at the very least you'll get some free legal advice, at the best maybe free representation.
1) Did he say that he created it for the University? This point is a bit of a vague one, but here's my argument. Note the following from flikx's original writeup sent to ask slashdot:
Early last fall, I personally created a Slash site called SOS under student government for my University.
It seems pretty clear that the specific organization that flikx was working for was the Student Government of the University. Does that then entail that he was working for the University itself, or moreover, that the University can claim IP rights for the work he produced? I think that there is a definite line between student government and University Administration in many regards. Student government is in a gray area between the individual student and the university administration, and I certainly believe that this question is not as clear cut as you'd make it seem. Legally, there may not be a distinction, but that point, in and of itself is troubling, to some extent.
2). The analogy between flikx and some MS Web-jockey falls apart in some very problematic ways. First there is clear compensation given to the MS designer. Second, there is a clearly understood agreement (I bet good money that it's even a written one, beyond any codification in statute or law) stating that any work done by that designer, for MS is MS's property. There does not seem to be the same clear agreement in flikx's case.
3) The IP rights in this case go well beyond the University vs. flikx. There is also the question of the IP rights of all of the people who posted to that site. By claiming all content from flikx's slashcode site as its own, the University is also denying the IP rights of anyone who authored a post on that slashcode site, are they not?
zpengo, I totally appreciate and agree with your points regarding the University's right and ability to remove their support (via "lending him their servers, bandwidth, domain name, etc.")
The point that is being made, however, seems to extend further than what you're arguing. From your original post in this thread: "Flikx is not being oppressed, he simply lost the support of those sponsoring him "
I think that the problem that's got most people a little worried or upset is not the University pulling it's support, via servers, bandwidth, etc. but rather the disciplinary and intellectual property rights issues that are being (possibly) abused in this case. The fact that the university is now claiming all content from the slashcode site that Flikx put together is a troubling move, in many people's eyes. Does the University of Utah have a right to claim all of that content as its own intellectual property? There may well be some sort of clause in their usage agreement to that effect, but if there is not, it seems very questionable as to whether or not UofU may claim it as their property.
I did a quick search of the University's website, hoping to find their network and computing acceptable usage policy statement, but I found something else that seems to speak to this issue even more strongly. At the bottom of many (if not all) pages on the UofU website, there is this link to a "Content Disclaimer". Of particular interest was the second point in this disclaimer:
Clearly, when it suits them, the University is more than willing to draw a clear distinction between what is their doing and what is the doing of another party, whom they are not responsible for, even though the content in question may be under their domain name. That point seems to really call into question whether or not the University may claim the work of Flikx, for which he was not compensated nor (as far as I understand it) was he under any sort of agreement regarding the rights to the site which he created. Clearly, the content disclaimer makes it clear that the University doesn't always claim any/all content accessible under its domain name as its property, so what is it about this case that makes them able to do so?
It is that point, in my opinion, that does make what the University of Utah is doing very scary, and if not censorship (which I am not arguing it is), it seems like it might be theft of intellectual property rights (both Flikx's AND all of the users who ever posted to that slashcode site.)
If it's a work for hire, he probably doesn't own the intellectual property. And he probably should read their intellectual property policy -- they almost certainly have one, and it may even include anything significant developed using their resources.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
i strongly agree with this statement. i used to run such an organization at RPI, and got in plenty of trouble myself, but eventually remembered to tone it down a little, keep it to a level that's fun, yet not excessive, and oh, yeah, graduate. My favorite part, though, was using an unoccupied dorm room's ethernet connection to host the site via ml.org. Right under their noses. The site's now at www.inflatablewhale.com -- the history behind it is pretty funny, despite the (mea culpa) bad html.
See here. If the content now belongs to a state institution, you might be able to make them release it by asking to see it under FOIA. IANAL, but there are references on the page above to Utah locals who are lawyers and who know the local FOIA.
Once you get the stuff legally viewable again, you can host it somewhere other than University-owned equipment.
Also, your university no doubt has some boiler-plate in its mission statement about freedom of intellectual inquiry or something similar. Look it up and be ready to quote it to the media if/when they talk to you.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
OK, I can see them yanking your site if they didn't like it. Their servers, their right to what's on them. However, pressing criminal charges and having you banned from campus seems a little harsh. They could at least have slapped your wrist first and talked to you about it. Obviously, it seems to me like the university was hiding something that your site was bringing out. Do they want you gone because you know something that they don't want you to? I'm sorry, but expulsion and criminal charges just seem a little harsh to me.
This only works for awhile, but then you may end up playing legal cat-and-mouse, having your site evicted from servers repeatedly or, as above, just get expelled. Not to mention the fact that just backing down and moving elsewhere removed the campus-centric nature of a site like this (which I would assume is an integral part of the site) and defies every indeal behind the first amendment.
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
First of all, check with your student union. They should have an ombudsman or something. Also, check with your Uni's school of Law (if they have one). Law students will often give free advice and even represent fello students, just for practice. You need advice (and these posts don't count). After you have someone on your side, find out about your school's appeals process (they must have one).
Second, put the site back up. It seems that it was useful, at least to the students. If you can't find a place, drop me a line.
Remember, ERTW... And if all else fails, hang a VW bug from the library.
If Flikx had his own website, independent from U of U, they couldn't touch him.
Not according to the University. They have stated that they own the IP rights to the site and that he can't bring it up outside. This would be laughable if it didn't have such tragic results for flikx -- they are asserting their IP rights on something they don't even approve of!
If I was flikx, I would concentrate on finishing my degree if at all possible. Ideally, you would want to stick up for what's right but I believe that pragmatic considerations take precedence here.
My understanding of this matter is that he's based this site off of slashcode? Hm... how is it that U of U can claim to own the entire site, intellectually, when Slashcode isn't owned by the person who essentially "tweaked" the slash code? The Code itself is owned by someone else, is it not? Couldn't the 'owners' or whatnot of the slashcode itself sue U of U for misrepresentation because they (UofU) say that thay own 'the whole thing'?
- Sometimes you're the pidgeon, sometimes you're the statue.
Hey kid: Get a lawyer.
Ignore everything and everyone else here until you do so. Go to the press only after you have protected yourself. This includes places like slashdot.
I repeat: Get a lawyer.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
ahhhh, but it was on their servers. and it might be said that he created it on their network, on their lab computers, etc. etc.
do professors own their works while they are in the employment of a university, or does the university have part ownership?
if I work on other stuff while i'm at my office using the company computers, do I own that work or does my company?
it's actually pretty smart of them to claim ownership. by claiming ownership before removing it from their servers, they are preventing him from bringing the same information that they would like to supress up on the web under a different hosting account. pretty clever if you ask me.
This would be completely true if they were a private entity, but since they're not, it's more complicated. As far as I understand it, if a government entity offers a public forum for speech, they cannot in any way, shape, or form, revoke that right based on what a user says without violating the First Amendment. They can't offer a public forum and then say "but you can't say x, y, and z" if x, y, and z are constitutionally protected forms of speech.
I believe that in order for UU to be in the right here, they have to prove that there was abuse of an unconstitutional nature going on (threats, fighting words, etc.). Otherwise, they're engaging in content discrimination, it's probably unconstitutional, and hopefully it'll be pursued. It doesn't sound like there was any speech on his page that would be unprotected; rather, it just sounds like the administration didn't like it. Of course, we're only getting one side of the story, so there may well have been threats or something.
The "supported speech" argument is well-suited to disputes with private organizations, but a government-run organization is a whole 'nother ball of wax, I think. I mean, since the entire internet is at its core a government project, couldn't you argue by this logic that *any* website is "supported speech", which support the government can revoke at any time?
-brennan
I get the feeling that some critical details are missing from flicx's account.
In particular, police involvement, threat of criminal charges, confiscation of equipment as evidence, suspension, and expulsion seem like they're probably completely independent from the issue of an administration-critical site. I doubt that a judge would grant a protective order if the only issue were that you failed to censor somebody else's political comments.
What seems more likely is that the "threats" allegedly spoofed from your e-mail address are being considered as actual threats from you. That would explain why the police would confiscate equipment, why a judge would grant a protective order, why you would be suspended, and why you would face expulsion. These actions could happen to anyone based on spoofed threats, particularly when technically uninformed people are making the decisions. (For example, administrators assuming a "reply to" address must be authentic, police believing administrators, and a judge believing police). I've had a Secret Service visit due to a spoofed threat as well, based solely on a reply-to address. I'm not saying the extent of their actions are correct, justified, or defensible, but they could at least be largely explained under this scenario of ignorance.
If I'm correct that spoofed threats are what set most of these actions in motion, then you have to do some legwork and wait for the slow wheels of justice to turn. But if you didn't send the threats, then there's no way to prove you did, and so some of your bigger problems will be resolved. (Assuming the System works, which it usually seems to for these types of situations).
Some of the other issues, such as intellectual property ownership and data ownership on a university-owned machine, are still arguable. But they seem largely separate from the criminal issues which make the case seem so dramatic.
Looks like you missed the part where flikx is facing expulsion and criminal charges. I you had read the entire article, you would know that Flikx does not need "the support of those sponsoring him" - he is quite capable of hosting the site without any help from the University.
Someone is facing imprisonment for airing opinions that offended the authorities, and your contribution to the ensuing discussion is a resounding and irrelevant defence of the authorities' property rights. Bravo.
Sounds like a good case for the ACLU. I would seriously look around for heavyweights that might be willing to take your case pro bono.
It is U of U's intellectual property. Flikx did not create this on his own server for his own reasons. He said himself that he had created it for student government. The notion that he has IP rights because he did some coding and administration is like saying that the SlashCode team has IP rights over the site because they wrote the software.
When it comes down to it, the site was designed for U of U, run on U of U servers, with U of U's name on it. Flikx put in a lot of time and effort, but that doesn't mean that he gets the IP rights to it.
(Ooooh, challenging the open source underdog instead of big brother. See how fast this gets modded down.)
Got Rhinos?
His academic status is irrelevant. It's a shame, yes, but the fact that we pity him doesn't make him correct. He used U of U resources in a way that apparently violated their code of conduct.
I'm not saying "Flikx sucks, U of U rules." I can see it from the university's perspective, though. If JonKatz started posting Slashdot articles about how stupid Linux is, you can be that he wouldn't be around for long. He has a right to say those things, on his own time, on his own server.
Got Rhinos?
He himself said that he created the site for the university. That means that they actually do have IP rights over the site. He can create a similar site elsewhere, but that site belongs to the university. He doesn't own it any more than the guy who wrote the HTML for Microsoft's website owns the site itself.
Got Rhinos?
When will people get this through their heads? There is a significant difference between "free speech" and "supported speech." Flikx is not being oppressed, he simply lost the support of those sponsoring him (through use of their equipment), and he must find another sponsor.
Got Rhinos?
a) The First Amendment applies equally to all citizens of the US, whatever bohunk jurisdiction you happen to find yourself in.
b) As pointed out in an interview here yesterday, the First Amendment protects *expressive* speech, not some limited set of useful political speech. Your value judgements have no place here.
c) There is a body of case law surrounding just such issues as this. One off the top of my head found that HS administrators did not have the right to constrain expression within a school newspaper published under the aegis of the school, with school funds and with teacher supervision. Schools have the right to enjoin speech within some pretty narrow rules: if it threatens imminent lawlessness or physical harm, IIRC. The Supremes ruled on this one and I recall O'Conner's opinion remarking that students did not leave their constitutional rights at the doors of the school. I don't have a Westlaw client handy, but if I find it, I'll post it.
illegitimii non ingravare
It was Hazelwood and it found quite the reverse regarding school control of newspapers. I recalled the remark from the minority opinion and extrapolated from memory. I humbly submit to being a citizen of a bohunk nation.
illegitimii non ingravare
If the site was on university computers, it's theirs. Too bad that you're being screwed hard here, but there is a code of conduct for university machines, and you obviously broke it. I'm not trying to be mean, but these are the facts. Had you had this site on an off-campus server, you would actually have a case. Yet, since it was on a server belonging to the university, you probably have no recourse.
However, I don't see how they can expel you. Sure, take away your computing 'rights' on campus, but expulsion seems a little harsh. Get a good lawyer and maybe you'll get out of the charges. Good luck.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
PS: The poster is Catholic and speaks from experience.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
first of all, it's not clear that a publically funded institution has the right to censor its students' speech at all, unless that student is somehow breaking a law (libel, copyright violation, etc.). second, a student at a public institution cannot be suspended without cause, which generally means that the student has to have broken some university regulation. even then it should require some kind of due process. third, if the university really has destroyed the content of the site (including backups) then it may have destroyed evidence that the student could use to defend himself. a lawyer is needed to figure out the specifics - but if the article is accurate, the folks responsible for this crime should be made to pay dearly.
- "The SOS server was taken offline for a temporary period, and is in fact down right now. (The DNS record is revoked.) Random immaturity from some "chicken shit" brought about the threat of a lawsuit. Causing the University of Utah administration to immediately shut down the site without notice. SOS will be back and as strong as ever as soon as major changes are made to safeguard students from abuses, and to increase accountability while preserving free speech. Unfortunately, anonymous posting had to be done away with, along with the adoption of clear and prominant posting guidelines and legal notices. Welcome to the new SOS, hope you like it."
I am rather surprised to find that the site isn't mirrored off campusUse my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
A. If everything has been destroyed except the 'evidence,' how is the university going to press its claim that this is their intellectual property? Seems like they'll have a hard time proving that.
More importantly, he just won every legal argument he could muster about the site. If the disks were wiped and only selected evidence was saved, as he claims, there is no, zero, and zilch way for him to get supporting evidence from that server. Essentially, he is unable to examine the entirety of the evidence, which is a fundamental violation of due process.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
While I can't offer much in the way of ideas, what I would like to do is thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention. For some time now, I have been planning to start a potentially extremely contraversial, slashdot style (probably even slashcode) weblog. One thing that's been stopping me is the cost of doing it out of my pocket. I had been toying with the idea of setting it up at my university, but seeing the problems you've had - well let's just say that that part of the idea is now officially scrapped.
Several people have mentioned the ACLU as a possibility... I remember coming across a group called OpenLaw once upon a time (I think here on Slashdot). They seem to help people in similar situations to yours - maybe it's another avenue to explore.
Best of luck - and keep speaking freely!
If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?
Umm.... the code is covered under the GPL, not the comments posted using that code. Nor, unless he specifically released them under the GPL, or some other open licence, are the graphics he may have created to enhance the site.
That it's stealing his content in this case, but it's sharing when you deprive an artist and his assigned agents of their income? (*cough*)Napster(*cough*)
maybe you should've gone to MIT? Their standards seem MUCH more relaxed:
http://fuck-the-skull-of-jesus.mit.edu/
"The home of iconoclasm on the MIT web."
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Yea, You could also try Toolshed51.com The owner of the site was kicked out of my University for posting "offensive" stuff about the university president on his webpage! He's been out to get school administrators since then, so let him know who you are and he will certainly get you a special deal on hosting...
Doh!
As I read this story, there are a few of issues at stake.
First: Is the University of Utah a tax supported institution? If it is, then the actions of the administration may constitute content based censorship by a government agency - a definite no-no under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983.
Second: Does the University of Utah generally permit students to establish Web sites for learning purposes (and at this point all must admit that flikx has really learned something)? If so, then they may have established an open forum, or limited open forum, placing on them the burden of establishing violation of the forum guidelines as a condition to terminating the forum discussion.
Third: Does the University of Utah have a clearly stated policy that student work product belongs to the University? (Usually such gifts of copyright are made by voluntary assignment to the institution on a form attached to the work in question - as the assignment of a use right in the case of a Master's thesis or PhD dissertation). If not, then the University's claim of ownership of the materials on the Web site is shaky, at best. My limited understanding of the copyright laws is that the copyright vests in the author when the work is fixed in a tangible medium. Under this standard, the University may own contributions to the site that were actually contributed by University _employees_, depending on the policies of the University, but for students contributing materials, each student arguably retains the copyright to the materials they have submitted to the site. Ownership of the host server noes not automatically result in ownership of the contents of each site on the server (with the exception of a license granting such as in MicroSoft's Passport).
IAALBTINLA
Felony Stupid - the crime of choice of the unincorporated.
I work for the University of Utah. This person was removed from ASUU because he was a hothead and consistently caused conflict. His concern over censorship never appeared until this slashdot story. He was investigated after a threatening 'anonymous' message from his home machine. It was not spoofed by "script kiddies". When he was confronted about this he immediately blamed his wife.
/. on top of everything else. shame shame
It makes me sad that he would exploit an important issue like censorship to cover for his juvenile activities.
And lieing to
If you think your degree is worth it, how about, get a lawyer? Is that so tricky?
:)
Remember, this is not legal advice.
Justice belongs to he who can afford a lawyer.
Since they have decided that they own all the work you did, then they owe you compensation for it. How about $100 per hour? Sue them for that too.
You could also hit them with lible/slander/defamation since they are ruining your academic career.
And while you're at it, make sure to get the top people at the university personally involved.
My point is, you are not defenseless, especially if it is a public school. Your tuition pays for the resources you were using. Play just as hard with them as they are with you. After all, they are trying to take 4(?) years of your life away from you.
If you can, get other poeple who used/participated in/worked on the site to join you in a class action suit. You can win against a large institution. Recently students at Humboldt State University (in CA) won a several million dollar judgement against the school because they took too long building the new library. Their premise was that they were being denied resources they were paying for.
I hate lawyers, but they have their uses. It's better to think of them as mercenaries you hire to fight for you. Sometimes I think it's unfortunate that the courtroom has replaced the Field of Honor, but that's just the way it is.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
If they claim you violated some "policy" demand a copy of the policy. If they claim you violated something that was on a student agreement then 1) Demand a copy of the agreement 2) Was this agreement signed by you and by them ? 3) Were you 18 when you signed it ? Do they HAVE any policy about student run sites (ownership/copyright/etc. ), then demand to see them. You DO have some recourses. You SHOULD get a lawyer though as protection. You may be able to prove harassment by the school (maybe not)..
UPS Sucks
1) Demand a copy of the agreement
2) Was this agreement signed by you and by them ?
3) Were you 18 when you signed it ?
Do they HAVE any policy about student run sites (ownership/copyright/etc. ), then demand to see them.
You DO have some recourses. You SHOULD get a lawyer though as protection. You may be able to prove harassment by the school (maybe not)..
UPS Sucks
2nd - find everything agreement with the university that you or your parents signed.
Did you sign away any intellectual property rights?
What exactly did you agree to pertaining to the use of their network?
And most importantly talk to reporters/professors and turn this into a free speech issue.
Can someone explain why this got modded down as a troll?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Flikx, in this thread at Geekizoid, you offer the use of university owned servers and bandwidth to slashdot trolls, for the purpose of hosting photos of the goat sex guy (for the love of god, do NOT hit that last link!)
I'd like to know -- was the administration upset about the crapflood of offensive comments that you passed off as a message board on their server, or were they upset to discover they were responsible for hosting photos of a guy with a giant gaping asshole?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
What, me worry?
Did you use school computers or software to design or manage the site? If so, they might lay claim.
Does school policy cover intellectual property pertaining to data stored on school servers? If so, they might lay claim.
Check the rules of the University, see if they own whatever is placed on their server. If not, then they destroyed your copywriten code. Since they were not your employer, they don't have any sort of automatic right to it -- which means unless you explicitly given it to them and they compensated you for it, it's yours! Since it's a state school you have due process rights.
Fight Spammers!
Your comment would make sense, IF katz paid slashdot to write for them, not the other way around. This guy has given tens of thousands of dollars to the school I'm sure, whereas katz gets paid whatever he makes by slashdot. Plus, the school agreed to let him do this, and even sponsored it. They had to have some kind of clue what they were getting into. I can't argue with them shutting down the site, and it doesn't surprise me that they claimed ownership of content, since it was on their server. I think that is all that should have happened tho. Going back to your analogy, this is more like if they fired katz, and then took him into the parking lot and beat him up in addition.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
They knew what he was doing though. They knew it was going to be some type of forum for students from what I can tell. They even bought him a server for it apparently. I think that would imply that he has the authority to give others permission to speak freely... wouldn't you?
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Many schools have a lawyer available for their students. Maybe he could consult the lawyer for students to give the story an even more interesting twist. Use the own school's resources against it. The lawyer may not be willing to risk his job over it though.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
"Six weeks ago, the administration censored the entire site due to the threat of legal action due to inapropriate content." Judging from this line, it seems the school was under the gun about what was being posted to the site.
"There's much more involved here in politics, plus scr1pt k1dd13 threats spoofed from my email and everything,..." Threats spoofed from his email? I don't think we are getting all the story here.
Finally, being from Utah, and having lived in Utah most of my life, I would appreciate it if you would reserve judgement about people who live there until after you actually get to know them. That does not include observing them from a distance, as you have said that you do. Try to actually get to know them. You might be supprised, we aren't all "Fascists." I personally wouldn't dream of attacking someone because they expressed their opinion, and it differed from mine. Just as I would hope that I wouldn't get attacked for my own opinion. Don't judge the many by the deeds of a few....
"Sure, I'm not one of the boys, and I'm denied certain privileges,..." I am curious what you meant here. What can't you do just because you aren't "one of the boys..."?
IANAL... But I play one on
I noticed a curious lack of details about what criminal charges have been made and the reason for the obtained protective order -- hopefully the author can fill us in. I wonder if this is something that the Electronic Frontier Foundation would get involved in? Maybe not, but maybe the ACLU? The University of Utah's argument to owning the content is strange -- if someone at the same University wrote an original poem on a blackboard in the classroom, would the University own that poem? How about a new mathematical theorem? Why is this different because the data stored electronically?
I'm surprised at the lack of outrage from reading the other people's submissions.
IMHO, Life is too short to put up with this kind of bullying. If you are going to be expelled anyway you might as well put the site back up and get a few friends to pass out leaflets on campus of the new URL. If your site was any good in the first place the controversy will get you all sorts of publicity.
Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought the entire purpose of student government was to provide a forum for students to engage the administration. Not a little club sanctioned by the administration to print the "approved news".
Did you forget to use and ? If you really feel that way you're the absolute moron.
:)
By your standards these would be rules to live by:
1) Always agree with your parents. Don't ever argue your point of view, never ask to stay out late and NEVER get involved in any after school activities that may require their occasional attention.
2) Never speak up in grade school. Don't try to excel but don't try to fail either. Try to pass yourself off as one person in the school, not as an individual.
3) When in college don't ever rock the boat, see rule 2.
4) When in the work place never disagree with your employer. Work long hours without complaint. Never point a finger at the responsible party. If someone blames something on you accept that blame. Don't take a risk by trying to improve a process, although many innovations are born this way your employer won't like it. Never ask for a raise because you're not worth it.
5) Die quietly. The young kids don't like retirees who live of social security. Politicians don't care for them either, especially since they retain the right to vote. If no one likes you then you have no place existing in society. Damn you.
Just my $0.02, but you have the right to try to make your current situation better. A free speech forum is such an attempt. You have the right to be an individual with an opinion. You have the right to create things of your own and retain ownership of them.
Hopefully you were just being sarcastic and I missed it
Having lived in Utah for the past ten years, I've seen too many episodes of this sort for this story to surprise me. It is all too common for the various institutions of the state to conduct witch-hunts designed, ostensibly, to do little more than utterly ruin people in the name of morality. My solution has been to never align myself with these sorts of institutions; somewhat difficult to do - but becoming increasingly less so. Remaining distanced from and independent of them saves you having to live in constant fear of ever becoming one of the bad-guys, and being ostracized. Sure, I'm not one of the boys, and I'm denied certain privileges, but it's still worthwhile for me - I recognize it as one of the prices I have to pay for choosing to live in Utah. Is this normal? Should it apply to a University? A University in Utah other than BYU? No - it isn't and it shouldn't. But that doesn't change the fact that it still does - even at the UofU. Again, things are getting progressively better here, but we'll still have to wait about another generation before reason reigns over perceived moral superiority, and the ensuing compelling need to make the world a better place by crushing your fellow Utahn gone astray.
Get a lawyer first. No question. Only they can really work out all the details.
More than likely they can kick you out (although they may not have followed their own due process giving you ample opportunity to remedy) and they can certainly choose not to host it.
They might even own whatever you did because it was on their server. Maybe. But I'd guess probably not. And even if they own whatever you did, they might not own all the posts.
If they give you an option to stay in school, I'd take it, personally.
Now, if someone who wasn't a student and didn't use your code were to restart it, well, that wouldn't be a problem. _IF_ they actually expel you, I would probably let someone else start it back up. And I'm not convinced a more liberal school wouldn't accept you, possibly even some with transfer value.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
There must be something you are not telling us. The administration is not likely to just "threaten you" as you report without some basis. What is it they say you did that gives them grounds for banning, suspending, and expelling you? Do they say you violated school rules? Which rules? Do they say you violated an agreement? What agreement?
Talk to the ACLU, they love this kind of stuff. I'm almost certain that they will back you.
If your school has a student grievance procedure, check up on it _NOW_. Most colleges/universities have a deadline for a grievance that is extremley short. Take this to the top i.e. College President, Division Deans, etc... There are usually several levels, appeal this to the top.
Also it would help to read the "Student Rights and Responsibilities" book.
Often there is a clause which states that you can not be diciplined for something like this.
It's Utah though, I have no idea what the "founding mormons" have decided.
If the ACLU backs you though, forget any sort of "in school" action - go straight to court.
Shit, you're banned from the campus anyways. Send the university registered letters asking for an appeal hearing, et al. Email / letters from them saying that the issue has "been decided and there is nothing you can do about it" are great in civil court. Especially if a student right is to be able to attend the university.
Most "in-school" stuff will not allow you to have a lawyer present anyways, which will probably screw you because they will have their top law professor there, representing the school. This is probably the most dangerous for you.
It looks as though your education at that school is kind of finished without legal intervention. Accept that for now, then start suing. If the ACLU doesn't take this, you should have lawyers calling you up offering to do the case with no up-front fee.
If they filled criminal charges against you, that really sucks because you know the prosecution is going to get "very mormon" people as the jury. It's not like there is racial diversity in Utah. Though, this is a fairly clear cut case of a school overstepping its boundaries.
If you do win in court (i.e. you can continue school), sue these fuckers as much as you can. You can reasonably assured of victory, especially if a court ruled that the school overstepped its boundaries in dealing with you.
File lawsuits based on harrasment, theft of intelectual and other property (I'm sure that they took something of yours - a book perhaps, shit, even a pen), libel, slander.
I believe (probably not in this country, or Utah) that you can charge the College President with criminal assault if you were physically touched by the police.
Get the student government to sue on the behalf of the students. Assuming they are elected and not hired, and are willing to step forward (i.e. not sheep led by a Dean), of course.
And get the site back up . . .
If it all fails, leave to a non-extradition treaty country (colombia), hire some hitmen and let them loose on the administration. The price should be about the same as a year of school. Seriously, $5000 in colombia will hire you a very decent hitman, and another 2,000 or 3,000 will get them into the USA.
A hit in ukraine costs about $100.
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffeineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
2. Copyright. Contents of all University Web pages are subject to University of Utah copyright standards covered in the University's Copyright Policy, PPM 6-5 (Copying of Copyrighted Works), PPM 6-6 (Performance or Display of Copyrighted Works) and PPM 6-7 (Ownership).
They refer to this document. Keep in mind it it dated 5/14/01, so it may not have been in effect when he was creating the site.
Jeeze what a mess of legal documents to sift through.
beans
IV. SCOPE
A. This policy applies to all members of the University of Utah community, and governs all networked World Wide Web storage and communications systems utilizing University networks or name space, regardless of ownership, whether individually controlled or shared. The use and management of University Information Resources is governed by the University Information Resources Policy (PPM 1-15). The policies presented herein are specific to the subset of World Wide Web information resources.
what is most interesting is this:
D. Due Process. Students have a right to due process in any disciplinary matter involving the possibility of substantial sanctions. This includes a right to be heard, a right to decision and review by impartial persons or bodies, and a right to adequate notice.
The person who submitted this story either left all of that process out, or has never gone through any due process procedures, including appealing to the Student Disciplinary Commitees.
F. Freedom of Expression. Students have a right to examine and communicate ideas by any lawful means. Students may not be subject to discipline because of their constitutionally protected exercise of freedom of association, assembly, expression and the press.
That was interesting
In order to promote personal development, to protect the University community, and to maintain order and stability on campus, students who engage in any of the following acts of misconduct may be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with Section B below: 5. Unauthorized or improper use of any University property, equipment, facilities, or resources including unauthorized entry into any University room, building or premises.
Is this what he actually violated?
Some people have called this story fake. We could verify with a phone call or email to the VP for Student Affairs.
Records of disciplinary action taken by the Student Behavior Committee or by any authorized official of the university shall be maintained in the office of the Vice President for Student Affairs
I'll keep digging with some phone calls.
So it's no surprise he's facing legal trouble for running a completely unmoderated forum.
All I see here is one side of the story. Maybe the university WAS right in taking down the web site. Were slanderous comments posted? Who knows? Was this person abusing bandwidth? Did he refuse to comply with the university's rules?
This is a VERY one-sided article and therefore it is difficult to draw ANY conclusions. As far as I know, the US Constitution does NOT protect against all speech. That deemed slanderous or intentionally harmful (ie yelling "FIRE" in a crowded place) is not protected. However, if you were hosting a politically or religiously critical web site, then you have every right to state your opinions.
You said that all backups were destroyed. Well, don't YOU keep any backups for yourself? Just what was being kept, anyway?
Whining won't get you sympathy. You must show valid proof that you were persecuted. For all I know, you're a Nazi Skinhead.
I have read most of the comments on this subject and agree with most of what has been said from a practical point of view. But what of the MORAL point of view. When and administration at my University pulled a similar stunt, the students banned together and demonstrated that the STUDENTS run the university not the ADMINISTRATION. Why NOT: 1. Get a group of students together with plackards and form a picket line in front of the administration building. 2. Set out booths and hand out flyers. 3. Post cartoons (political) on bulletin boards rediculing the administration. 4. Hold sit-ins in the administration building. 5. Roast marshmellows over a fire started in the waste basket in the deans office. Thomas E. Wiles University of California (Berkeley) Class of 1965 They ran like the cowards they are!!! WE ALL GRADUATED TOO!!!
Bingo Foo
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taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Bingo Foo
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taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
The University of Utah, as do most universities, has a code of conduct. If he violated it, then they have no obligation to support his speech by lending him their servers, bandwidth, domain name, etc.
I generally agree. However, the issue is different: flikx was hosting a site that allowed others to speak freely.
That the university can claim ownership of the site's design is debatable, but likely to fall in favour of the University.
It seems to me that the central issue is whether flikx had the authority to give others permission to speak freely on what is essentially a University-owned web site.
I don't see any easy way out of that argument, although I do not think it warrants criminal charges.
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
It's as simple as that (almost). U.S. law says that it's yours if you wrote it on your own time. The stories are owned by whoever wrote them, and so are the comments. If you designed the artwork (and it doesn't infringe on any university copyrights), it's yours too. Granted, it was their server, so they could wipe the thing if they wanted... but any backups are yours, and there's no way they'd win in court if they wanted to stop you from posting them.
As for you getting kicked out of school- I don't know all that much about your situation, obviously... Good luck, and I hope the bastards screw themselves over pretty damn good. There might be a good chance of you winning a lawsuit if they kick you out over some other people's postings... but like you said, it's Utah...
I am the managing editor for my student newspaper at Lawrence University , the Lawrentian, and think I might be able to provide some insight from the other side of the table. Last year some enterprising students created a website called "DownerSucks.com", a reference to our unfortunately named cafeteria, Downer Commons. After an intense publicity campaign, that included sidewalk chalking and posters around campus, many students and faculty were attracted to the site that featured unmoderated discussion boards. The school newspaper ran a front page article about the site, even though many people in the school power structure were not all that keen about an off-campus discussion board. Although at first people used this tool properly, eventually the discussion fell to the lowest common denominator. Because the site was completely independent of the university, hosted off campus, and without any formal school support, no administrators were able to censor the site. Eventually a strange thing happened. As the quality of discussion declined, the site became irrelevant. Today, DownerSucks.com is just a placeholder. The lesson learned at Lawrence is that perhaps benign neglect might be the best way for administrators to deal with renegade forums.
Fortunately several prominent contributors from the message boards have migrated to our opinion page. When the newspaper recently upgraded our website, we have included non-moderated forums. Because our traffic count is just starting to grow (we're growing at 50% a week, albeit from a very low base) we have not run into any problems. If and when people do go over the line, the forums will become moderated. In terms of your experience, I will echo the other posters who have suggested that you contact a lawyer. Although the ACLU might be better known, perhaps the Student Press Law Center might be a better option. As well, in Wisconsin we have an excellent newspaper association. Their counterpart in Utah might be able to provide you with legal, if not moral support. I wish you best of luck.
"The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think -- that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it's not America." -Edward R. Murrow
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
This is a story that should probably be told on a wider scale. I've sumbitted it to NYTimes, ABCNews, CNN, MSNBC, CBSNews, Salt Lake City Tribune and some others. Anybody else wanna help?
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
I have a lawyer that helped me a great deal in resolving some of the personal issues of this case. Yet another addenum that needs to be added. At the time I wrote the article, I had no lawyer, a million threats, I was scared, and obviously pissed off. The administration is pretty fired up now that the slashdot article hit.
So to all the lawyer suggestions, I did my best with no money, and a friend of the family really helped out. My personal problems are more or less resolved, now onto the problems with the site itself.
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Violating the student behavioral code at the University of Utah. There were a couple major incidents .. one being the script kiddie threatening email I mentioned in the article. It was just proven today that I did not send the threat at all. So I'm more or less in the clear on that just from things that transpired this day.
My behaviors notwithstanding, I still take issue with the fact that the site has been shut down before, and is currently shut down; plus the fact that I have no power whatsoever over the last year of my work.
There are others out there than can and will run the site for me, and I was planning on taking the back seat before fall semester anyways .. but having the site censored on account of the actions of few that effect many. -- That disturbs me.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
A. I was told the server was wiped, now I'm told that it's simply locked away. Either way, I have absolutely no access to the site, outside of my own personal backups. I did this for the university.. even if I wasn't asked to create the site, my statements saying that I created it for the U seem to be coming back to haunt me. Plus, they don't use it to keep the site out of my hands only, I see it as a good way to keep the site under for good.
B. Well, hindsight is 20/20; I wish I was smart enough to realise that a year ago.
C. Done, and done.. before the story even hit slashdot.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
I am mormon. I do not see this as a religious issue in any way outside of the fact that most people in student government get offended a lot easier than people in the general university population.
I could never have created SOS at BYU.. I don't even think I'd be able to even last at BYU. I'd have to cut my hair and quick swearing sometimes, but I think that my wife would go bananas living in Provo.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
I think the police are out of it now. And no, Mormon jokes aren't illegal, but linking to goatse.cx is. I do not recall any such links on the site, so I doubt that there would be any sort of action against any user on SOS. Yes, the site logs IPs, apache does that.
As for evidence, I think that they were looking more for poor character references to prove that I'm an asshole. I admit to being an asshole every now and then.
As for the AC's comment about my Geekizoid authorship, that is no lie. I am a troll, and I have trolled in the past. I do my best to remain friend to all, be they troll, crapflooder, spork, k-whore, /bot, genuine slashdot user, or even cyborg monkey. I assure everyone that this is not an elaborate troll. There are plenty of ways to verify my story.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
For one, I have mentioned this in a couple other comments already, but I have been cleared on the script kiddie email, which was the main drive for legal action against me. Just a few hours before this article went live, I had my suspension withdrawn and had reached a settlement with the parties involved.
At sos.asuu.utah.edu, using university bandwidth and DNS records. The server was located directly in the student government offices on university of utah property.
Very little.. especially to the level at which everything blew up in my face.
As for the nasty email, I rather see the administration's viewpoint represented as well, but I don't think that will happen. But fire away if you wish.. officially, I neither encourage or discourage you from sending it.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Do you have any specific examples? I was told exactly the opposite by the administration when I compromised to allow the site to come back after the first weeklong censorship in march.
I have always seen anonymous speech as a right, but the main issue with the Dean was that I need to allow for accountability on SOS. If people break the law or the student code of conduct, they need to be help accountable. It was simply expressed that allowing Anonymous Cowards to post was unacceptable at any level.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Yes, there is some information missing from the story, though I promise there are no falsehoods.
The inappropriate content: the first time the site was censored, this was a single comment made by Anonymous Coward, slandering a specific person in student government in a very childish and stupid manner. The next time around, it's more offensive content with obnoxious users.. mainly someone creating an account named 'fuckwit' and others.
The grounds that I was being charged with were mainly for the threatening email. Now that my name is cleared of that specific crime, I do not face the same actions I did a week ago when I wrote this article.
My other accusations stand from making constant white hat comments in an effort to get the shipshod network fixed so I didn't have to be bothered by it. Some people took that as threats from me to take down the system or delete their driver's licenses or somesuch. In other words, I have a long trail of minor annoyances and offenses that really get the administration disliking me. It is to the point that I am really a disruption. That's basically the rest of the story. I still don't think that it's fair to negate all my work based on the fact that I'm rude, honest, and asshole, etc..
Still, my main concern all along is preserving my work, and allowing SOS to operate well into the future.
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
No criminal charges were made against me, only threatened with 'computer crimes'. .. mostly stemming from the scr1pt k1dd13 threats. The protective order wasn't obtained, although I was told that it was last week. They seek this action because I got in a verbal artercation as a direct result of standing accused of the email. It has now been proven that I did not send the email in question.
The arguement of them owning all content is simply to prevent me from ever running a site affiliated with the university again. IMO. I am now blacklisted, and a known troublemaker.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
That was status current of one day before the site went back up after the first censoring in march. It is currently censored again, after being up from April 2 to May 24
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
The trolls never created any problems.. people coming from Geekizoid were good for some laughs. Reposting things about the moon being a liberal myth and such.. just plain funny.
The problems came from crapflooders at the university, not from Geekizoid at all. So having trolls come to SOS was really a non-issue. Also, nothing was revised or deleted on Geekizoid to my knowledge. The story in question was posted during the time before the whole site was lost to engaging.net .. that's where your censorship came from.
I never asked for inappropriate and/or offensive content be posted. And my intentions were not to get a rise out of the administration. Seeing a few trolls on SOS did a great job of bringing out the lurkers.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
1: not slashcode, or any other GPL'd software obviously.
2: 2000+ hours.. yep, it's true. I've averaged close to full time some weeks, and exceeded others for well over a year now.
I did not record my hours, since I was not expecting pay .. so 2000 is a bit of a generalization. Although it should be accurate. And yes, there were a couple other things besides direct work on SOS that factor into all of that. Either way you look at it, it's not a false claim to say that I've put in 2000+ hours into the university over the past 12 - 18 months.
3: The administration is not going to say much else other than the fact that I haven't given the entire story in excruciating detail. For this slashdot article, I did my best to make it breif and not go into too much detail.. especially personal things. In retrospect I should have submitted the entire thing as the largest slashdot article ever .. it would easily weigh in at around 80k or more.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Also don't forget the court of public opinion. Newspapers eat this shit up. Think of Teacher Review, a site that some teachers San Francisco State University unsuccessfully tried to shut down. Press coverage was very sympathetic to the students who ran it, and hostile to the objecting teachers who (correctly) were perceived as whiners who couldn't take some criticism.
sulli
RTFJ.
and not one of his posts have been modded up. Read his side of the story in his uid... moderators take note.
sulli
RTFJ.
Found here:
http://www.admin.utah.edu/ppmanual/6/6-4.html
It looks like you can claim that SOS was available to the public, and that therefore the "inventions" created there are not university property.
Come on, you're in UTAH and you're surprised when they want to sanitize your content?
You built it using their server, and their bandwidth, and now you're mad that they want to control it? IT'S A UNIVERSITY WEBSITE.
Next time pay for the hosting yourself, preferably in a state outside Mormon-ville, and chalk this up as a lesson to NEVER host anything important on your employer, or a university, webserver.
If you want it to be "yours", then put it on YOUR server that YOU pay for, work on it on YOUR time, and then there can be no question of ownership. Anything else is foolish.
P.S. I think it sucks that you could be expelled for this. Unfair. You're still a dumbass though.
The ACLU would rip these guys a new asshole....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's some info missing from this story. What was the "inappropriate content" that the university objects to? On what grounds are they threatening to arrest you, flikx -- is it because of the site, or because of the spoofed emails (that they might believe really came from you)?
Not that I necessarily don't believe you, but the university's reaction sounds awfully harsh for what you describe. If they believe you did something genuinely bad that you didn't do, like make threats (or instigate others' threats), that doesn't make them right, but it might make them sound a little more reasonable. If so, your defense might be more effective if it's based on presenting evidence that you didn't do the genuinely bad thing(s) they think you did, rather than asserting your freedom of speech.
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Utah is quite different from the rest of the US. Unwritten rules of many kinds are of far greater importance than the first amendment there.
Although the University of Utah is rather open-minded compared to, say, BYU, I'm not at all surprised that this site got shut down.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Do you have any more specifics? I'm interested in *where* the site was hosted, *what* you had on it (any university-owned fonts?), and if they had given you any prior warning that you would be in trouble.
I'm empathetic at times, but before I send the University of Utah a nasty email in your defense, I'd like to be certain of the exact situation.
Well, as far as the items being owned by the University, I think they got you there. I do think you have an argument against explusion. I'd simply tell them that you are sorry that the siutation was something they did not approve of and would like to continue going to the University (on 'double-secret probation' if necessary).
Legally they can expell for any reason whatsoever, but politically they might not want to. Especially if you can garner enough support. (I'm sending them an email in your defense now)
Expelling a student for developing something that several students used, and for learning and making achievements that no other student probably has is something that they may have to answer to if you can get the local student government to back you.
Sorry to give you such a bleak outlook, but this is sometimes what Universities do.
A. If everything has been destroyed except the 'evidence,' how is the university going to press its claim that this is their intellectual property? Seems like they'll have a hard time proving that.
B. Never, ever host something controversial on a server that belongs to someone else. ISPs, universities, businesses, etc. contain spineless weasels who'll likely succumb to the first pressure.
C. Forget about asking questions on SlashDot. Get a lawyer. Fast.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
First off, many posts have been treating this situation as if the University was a private entity that owned the server and bandwidth in question. This could not be further from the truth. The University of Utah is a PUBLIC University, subsidized by public taxes on the residents of Utah, and otherwise funded by the student's tuition. Ergo, the University bandwidth, and server hosting WAS owned by the student. In addition, any portion of the site that could be called into question as NOT being owned by the student directly, is therefore owned by the public - this places the contents of the site DIRECTLY under speech protected by the constitution. The State does not have the right to prohibit speech placed in a public forum - this is why state universities in general have been a hotbed of free speech, be it in the form of protests, or websites. For example, many students may find a gay pride march through the university center offensive, but it is protected speech. What difference does it make in a digital media? As a student or resident of the state, one pays for the ground the university is on, likewise in this case, the "digital" ground or "site" was ALSO paid for by the same. As for the confiscation of the material, copyright infringement, expulsion, and legal action taken by the university, these can be considered nothing less than discrimination and legal persecution on the basis of speech that the state disagreed with. Speech which was presented in a public forum, on a medium owned jointly by the student and the public. Speech that is protected. Using this as a precedent, what is to prevent the government, be it state or federal, from descending upon the peaceful participants in a million whatever march in Washington, siezing their picket signs, kicking them out of D.C., and threatinging them with legal repurcussions? There is no difference. If this precedent remains, free speech will have taken a mortal blow.
Kyndar: Exotic Imports, Jewelry, Candles, and Incense http://www.kyndar.com
My guess is that you refused to do so, thereby violating some rules. If my guess is right, you should realize that you are in a bad position to play strong man.
The texts contributed by others are in no way copyrighted by U.Utah, unless there is an agreement to the effect on the host your website was subdirectory of.
Although I don't believe it, the work that you did might be theirs - the question is, did you operate your server under some special account or from a normal student account ? Who granted you the right to use it, and under what assumptions and which rules ?
As I side note, I really wonder how you can "professionally" handle all complaints about foul posts without censoring even one.
Good Luck.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
If Flikx used university servers then he should respect the university's wishes. If he paid for the web hosting himself then they wouldn't be able to do a thing to him legally. In the case where someone provides you with free hosting, they've got a very strong case for owning the entire site (messages and code and all). It's just a shame that Flikx might get expelled because some administrators have a branch up their rectums. It sounds as if they're trying to make an example of him.
Onorio Catenacci
--
"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
--
"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
I've heard Censorware gives an example of handling censorship.
The university of Utah's "Information Resources Policy" is here:
http://www.admin.utah.edu/ppmanual/1/1-15.htmlSince the site in question was hosted on a university server, or at least was using the university's network the first ammendment is not a valid argument here.
The university owns the equimpent and resources and can give and take away what they want. From the policy:
The University of Utah makes available Information Resources which may be used by University students, faculty, staff and others. These resources are intended to be used for educational purposes and the legitimate business of the University and in a manner consistent with the public trust. Appropriate use of the resources includes instruction, independent study, authorized research, independent research and the official work of the offices, departments, recognized student and campus organizations of the University.
Access to computer systems and/or networks owned or operated by the University of Utah imposes responsibilities and obligations on its Users. Access is granted subject to University and Board of Regents policies, and local, state, and federal laws. Appropriate use is ethical, reflects academic honesty, and shows restraint in the utilization of shared resources. Appropriate use is consistent with intellectual property rights, ownership of data, system security mechanisms, and rights to privacy and to freedom from intimidation, harassment, and annoyance.
This does seem a bit harsh though, and although I've read some of the google cache, I can't help but feel that perhaps we're missing part of the story, and the univeristy has it out for this guy for other reasons as well.....
Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my disk????
Seems to me that unless your site had a specific message to the contrary, the rights to the posts belong to the authors. As for the rights to the material you wrote, unless you signed something (or clicked through an agreement) stating that all material you placed on the system became the property of the University, such a restriction cannot be retroactively imposed. Note that you could have previously agreed to this in any of a number of documents, starting as early as your application to enter the University.
Of course, if you signed an agreement like that and failed to inform posters of the loss of their rights, there may be cause for a class action suit :-)
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
1. How can they persue any legal action, pertaining to the content of the site, against him when they claim to be the owers of that content. Wouldn't it be in their best interest to disaval all ownership in this case?
2. What university policy did he violate as a volunteer? They own the content, so anything that is obscene is their fault?
3. What exact laws did he break? He claims the script kiddies email threatening the UNI were spoofed...
4. Why would a place that is designed to spread intellectual curiousity be so harse against dissent?
5. Why would a they ask him to remove Slashcode and use a "professional" product that allows moderation? Isn't that thinking contrary to intellectualy curiousity.
Just sounds like another reason not to go to College in Utah to me.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Speech in Utah takes exactly one approved form, and I don't think I even need to drop the name of the organization that determines what form that is. During this same previous trip, the local press had run a little drivel piece that pointed out, among other things,
If you knew Utah as well as you seem to assert you do, you'd realize that the University of Utah is the last entity that's likely to be controlled by your unammed organization.
Well, next to the City Weekly....
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
-----
Item F of the 'Student Bill of Rights' section covers the free speech issue just as one would expect: There is no suprise here. Unfortunately, we don't know under what provisions he's being expelled. Items A2 and A5 of section III of the code seem potentially pertinent: More likely A5 though: Also, he might be expelled under terms of the Computer/Network acceptable use Policy, governing the use of the university IT Infastructure. This document as well, is pretty standard as these sorts of things go. It states that they can do pretty much whatever they please: It conveniently doesn't say anything about what 'other inappropriate uses' are.
As for computer crimes, I'd love to know what computer crimes have been comitted. Presumable, if and when charges are filed, all of this will become a matter of public record, and the university can expel the student for merely having charges broght against him, but the million dollar question is What charges could be filed in this case?
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Quoting from the opening paragraph:
And under the Bill of Rights:
D. Due Process. Students have a right to due process in any disciplinary matter involving the possibility of substantial sanctions. This includes a right to be heard, a right to decision and review by impartial persons or bodies, and a right to adequate notice.
F. Freedom of Expression. Students have a right to examine and communicate ideas by any lawful means. Students may not be subject to discipline because of their constitutionally protected exercise of freedom of association, assembly, expression and the press.
So, it seems to me that under the school's very own rules our slashsiter has legal and school recourse. The ACLU will run with this...
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Isn't both AOL and EA (uo division) being sued right now for not compensating volunteers? I would charge them 10 bucks@hour to be nice 10*2000=20,000 which would be a downpayment on a education at a more professional educational institution. Anyways you don't want to get caught between that raging mormon jehova witness war, "No my god is right, No my god is Right, No my god is right" All religions make me wanna throw up. All religions are the same.
It is not "their stuff." The stuff belongs to the taxpayers of the State of Utah and the U.S. (since the Federal government is more probably partially funding the education of >50% of their students). As a public university, which is a government agency, the school is subject to the First Amendment. If they don't want to allow hosting on university servers, they might be able to pull that off, but there's no basis for criminal charges. I'm looking forward to seeing the ACLU v. Utah in the news soon.
Be even funnier to see them lose their eligibility to process Federal aid over this.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I realized that after I submitted--I saw "their stuff" and reacted, then repeated most of your post :).
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
My guess is that they are upset about the content and about your reaction when they first tried to control the content. They probobly have good grounds for both civil and criminal charges against you.
GET A LAWYER RIGHT NOW.
He will be able to help you apologize, kiss ass, and beg while avoiding self incrimination. With enough groveling you might be allowed to finish your degree. Without it you are totally completely hosed.
Oh yeah, there is no free speech question here. None at all. Stop even thinking about it. The publisher (the University of Utah) has the right to control the content of anything it publishes. And that includes web sites published by students using UofU equipment.
The fact that you volunteered to create the site makes NO DIFFERENCE. You chose to give them 2000 hours of work and they chose to through it away. You each made your choices. Your choices in no way create an obligation and any one else.
Stop whining. Suck it up. Hire a lawyer. Start pleading, begging apologizing, and groveling.
StoneWolf
If this was a private institution there would be much less of a problem. But as a publicly funded entity they have additional rules and limitations on what they can and can't do, and I think they may have overstepped those bounds. Univ. funding on both State and Federal levels can be lost if they don't comply with all the 'rules'. So in addition to a lawyer, contacting your representatives and presenting your case could be very helpfull.
Is there something missing here? Are there documented "incidents" or did you fail to comply with directives they gave you? Was there a warning of consequences? What are the specifics of the charges (they must detail specifically what infraction occured and when)?
I've looked at the Google cached pages, and can only come to three possible conclusions:
1. You've left out some important details, and they have better reasoning for these charges than you lead us to believe.
2. Your University has been taken over by fanatical conservatives, and they're trying to make an example of you, legal or not.
3. You'll be rich once you hire a lawyer and sue them for malicious prosecution.
Keep us informed, it'll be interesting to see where this goes.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I live in Idaho, just north of Utah and we have as many mormons per capita as Utah. I see a lot of the same sorts of things here. The ULTRA conservatives feel they have the right... nay... the necessity to limit the lives of everyone else around them. Whether they believe the same or not.
Boise is now looking into about a dozen different ordinances to limit "Adult Businesses". Everything from strip clubs to book stores to some theatres where they might... GASP... show nudity in a play. One of the funnier ones is that they want to not allow any of "these undesireable businesses" within 1000 feet in any direction of any residence, park, church, school, government building, and about 10 other types of places. That doesn't sound all that bad until you start to think about it. There end up being exactly 2 locations in this town of 200,000 which meet these requirements. Hmmmm... not like they planned it that way, eh? It really is a pathetic exersise to watch. Any one who stands against them, (Much like this student) gets attacked in every way the authorities know how.
I would assume that you could find a lawyer to make a pretty good case against expullsion. That seems to be a VERY harsh punishment for nothing more than providing a forum.
When are they going to learn? I really loathe these authority figures who think that as long as they can keep people from doing what they want or expressing themselves that everything in they're little world is OK. *sigh*
My $0.02
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
"banned me from the University property. I'm also suspended indefinately, and face immediate expulsion from the University. (BTW - I'm almost done with my Mechanical Engineering degree .. so this is not light by any means. If expelled, I'm forced to start over as a freshmen if
I ever get into another school.)"
I can assure you that unless UU would refuse to provide a transcript (which I suspect would be illegal, and would certainly get them in hot water with other Universities) That he/she would not have to start over as a freshman.
I do transfer credit for part of the University of Michigan...
As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."
Well, as a person who has endured some responsibility for student government initiatives during my studies, I can tell you that you probably have little or no recourse whatsoever if you decide to fight this.
It has been my experience that most people, who have more authority than you at a university, will tend to use extreme measures if you become a proverbial "itch that they must scratch". They will use any possible excuse to get rid of the problem (as I'm sure you are experiencing now), including the well famous "code of conduct" that barely any student can understand completely without an army of lawyers.
Unfortunately, this sounds more like a political battle, rather than a legal one. I would doubt very much that you can challenge them legally; most universities tend to have you waive your rights to pretty much everything that there is a law for, just by enrolling as a student.
My bit of advice is to concede early. If you can make their response appear extreme, you might come out of this situation with only the loss of the site. That is far better than wasting all that time and money by facing expulsion.
Note: I'm not defending academics at all in this statement. Hypothetically speaking, if I stayed in that environment for 4+ years, I'm pretty sure that my social skills would be so bad that I would want to squash away students that pissed me off.
This sounds like a conversation you should be having with the ACLU...
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
First, a lot is going to depend on the circumstances that you face. I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but I did run an "underground newspaper" in my college days.
On the plus side, you are at a state school. State schools, as a state institution, are more restricted in the actions that they can take. Basically, you have more consitutional protections than you would have at a private school.
In terms of the ownership of the site, you may or may not have a case. Given that the school purchased and maintained the server, the site may be their property. You created the site using their resources and you may have explicity or implicity agreed to their ownership in whole or part of IP created using their resources.
The key here - and this will be where an attorney will be critical - is how do they treat the ownership of IP created by others that are supported by the University. For example, do they own and control the use of articles written for the school newspaper? Or if someone wrote and produced a play while as student at the University and with the Universities' support would they claim ownership?
You are also going to have to separate the issues that you are facing, but you need to ask yourself if the formal charges which they are pursuing, including the expulsion, are retribution for your "free speech" activities. If you can make this case, it does undermine the other issues.
I don't know how much of this situation is related to content on the bulletin board that you maintained. If they are punishing you for content that you did not create, then you have as a defense the same one that AOL would have. They might be able to take things down, you can't force someone to support speech - even the government - but they can't punish you obscence or libelous content you did not create.
You need a top notch civil right's attorney. I suggest you contact your local ACLU chapter or the Electronic Freedom Foundation . At the ACLU, I would suggest that you contact Carol Gnade (Utah point person), and the EFF, I would suggest that you contact Cindy Cohn. See if they will take on this case. In fact, based on the facts reported, you might want to see if the want to cooperate on it, given that the issues cross in and out of the online and real worlds.
He's in quite a pickle. The Uni can do whatever with his servrs, as draconian as that sounds.
It is outrageous though, that he gets kicked out when he is so close to finishing. I'd take this in mind from now on and veer anyone that i know that is going to the Univserity of Utah, not go to there, or any of its other schools.
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
He says Script kiddies spoofed threatening emails to Uni admins. That might be the basis of his explusion. He KNOWS that it was them, but THEY dont.
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
I thought the lameness filters were supposed to eliminate these types of redundancies.
I think that the main issue here is not that they have removed their support, (which is certainly their right) but they have threatened him with legal and/or university action and warned him not to republish his site elsewhere. Depending on what agreements he signed or made by attending the University or putting up his site on their servers, they are very probably well within their legal rights. Of course, that does not mean that what they are doing is not morally reprehensable. Students at the University of Utah should protest its actions. My advice to Flikx, though, is to do everything that they say. Having to start your degree over elsewhere is no laughing matter, legal reprocussions aside.
Goto http://freeweb.sourceforge.net For the furure of UNcensorable content.
Copyright law is actually pretty fun, especially in a case like this. It is exceedingly unlikely the page, the graphics, and the content belong to anyone other than the owner. This is actually gone to the Supreme Court, and though in a different context, the law is pretty clear.
Was the creator of the site paid as an employee for the site? No. The Supreme Court is pretty clear on what constitutes an agent of employ, which is why faculty theses are considered property of the University (they receive employment compensation for their efforts). Because the creator of the site is a student and created the site as such, and not as an agent of the UofU, he maintains the copyright on everything having to do with that site no matter what they did to it, or where they put it. In order for the UofU to hold the copyright on this site, the creator would have had to expressly signed over that copyright. I don't think he did that. What he really needs to do, if it hasn't been done already, is get himself a lawyer. I don't know what the lawyers at the UofU are thinking, but I'm wondering if they were even asked prior to the administration's actions. Likely not.
Well...I was a year old when this happened, but...
This is a cyberspace parallel to the situation at Berkeley in '64 that created the Free Speech Movement and made Mario Savio an international leader.
--Blair
P.S. Of course, because of the novel and creative nature of the first Free Speech Movement protests, people decided that such things were a lot of fun, and started looking for reasons to have "happening" protests --sometimes just to mock their own herd-like sociology-- and you know how the '60s ended up. In the '70s.
Which leaves you with the question over IP. Since you are not employed by the university and they didn't pay for the creation of the SOS content, it seems like one hell of a stretch for them to claim ownership of said content.
I think you have a very strong case against the university and you could probably sue them big time for violation of yours and other students' First Amemndment rights (by wiping the disks they've effectively irrevesibly censored you and/or the students who posted -- not to mention that they also destroyed your property).
Go get 'em dude. We're all (well most of us anyway) behind ya'.
Uh, and I guess I shouldn't forget the obligatory IANAL.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
If it's anything like the University I attended:
> 1) Demand a copy of the agreement
It will be publicly available. Code of conduct and network acceptable use policies are not hard to find.
> 2) Was this agreement signed by you and by them ?
When a student enrolls, I suspect that there is a clause that indicates each student agrees to abide by a certain code of conduct. When applying for network access, there is usually a note indicating that you agree to the acceptable use policy.
> 3) Were you 18 when you signed it ?
Irrelevant as the registration forms are signed every year, and flikx has got to be over 18 by now.
None of those three questions are valid.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Still, talk to a lawyer, perhaps the ACLU, see if you have any legal recourse to keep your transcript intact. With the hostility this new administration is showing to you, I doubt you could recieve any semblance of a fair education at your current school, so in my opinion, you're almost certainly going to need to transfer.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
They also enforce some strange rules. If you're caught running a server of *any* kind without permission, they will bring you up on misconduct charges as well as shut your 'net off.
From a private university, and as a student and fellow slashdotter, I'm only assuming that you've read the Network Terms of Service. If they have a clause that says that 'if you run a server, we have all IP rights.'
Not much help, but I think that they've gone a bit overboard. Free speech is free speech. You're at their university, you're paying for it, and you were delgated a position as student leadership, and as such they permitted you access. You've got every justification to say that the site is yours, and that the content is the user's responsibility.
----
Ian
ONU's Finest Computer Sciences Geek
I disable sigs...do you?
WAKE UP, SLASHDOT!
/.). The on-going contest over there is to see who can get front page articles posted. flikx is an author and regular poster on Geekizoid.
Geekizoid is a site devoted to trolls and trolling (especially focussed on
Draw your own conclusions about the meaning (to say nothing of the reality) of this "Ask Slashdot". And read Geekizoid regularly.
--
324006
I looked around and it all seems innocent enough. I can see that they might get disturbed that some site is questioning the term limits and such.
m.kelley
www.mkelley.net
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
Let me start by saying IANAL! (Although now I write the letters and my lawyer just proof reads them.)
I run an anon web site and am faced with stuff like this almost daily..
First off get a lawyer!
Second learn the law!
Let me fill you in a little.
CITE 18 USC Sec. 241 01/26/98
EXPCITE TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I - CRIMES
CHAPTER 13 - CIVIL RIGHTS
TEXT Sec. 241. Conspiracy against rights
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any
right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same;
or If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured -
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
It would appear that the University has violated the law. I would look into it and get a lawyer to do any paperwork.
Being this is a federal law you would need to file with the federal magistrate.
There are laws that help but you need to decide what you are going to stand up for. Will you stand and defend your rights or will you back down and submit? You may loose your ME deg. or all credit gained to this point.
I personally would transfer to another school, Put the site back up, and then file charges!
Lawyers.... Look in to them...And just in case...go to your closest convience store and pick up a tube of KY.
When I volunteered as a gallery manager and later president of a student organization, I always knew that the paperwork, the communications (newspaper clippings, documentation) by-laws and everything else belonged to the student organization. It was my temporary duty to take care of these things improve them and make sure they would get passed on.
Students who exhibited art at the galleries obviously retained copyright to there work. The physical space often belonged to the university, so there was an overlap of interest in different things with the weakest legal entity being the non-incorporated student organization.
While I don't think that the university owns the website and design I don't think the author does either. If he volunteered his time to create it he cannot seek to take this toy and go somewhere else with it. As the University should have due process so should a student organization and especially a student government.
All that said, I just don't think I have the whole story here, what's this about leet script kids???
Although I did not go to a religious or private school when I had to confront censorship issues during the course of the duties I found that no-one, administration or otherwise held my positions against me personally as long as I never resorted to misinformation in my arguments defending an Artist's exhibit.
All that said the site was a good use of slashcode, I didn't think anything could make student government kind of issues interesting.
Your rights online at school are basically like your rights in person at school: Especially at well-funded institutions with lots more money than you, you have none. Just like public high school, you are not free to think or say what you wish, even if (as NOT in this case) it's off campus, because they'll expel you or harass you or cause all sorts of misery.
Those of you who have listened to Howard Stern recently are aware of the kid in the northeast who got suspended for writing an erotic song about his English teacher. It didn't matter that he wrote and recorded it outside of school, and himself never brought it to school. No, although his friends brought it to school without his permission, the author still got harassed about it. (All I can say is that many freshman boys are hot for their teachers. Fact of life. If you don't like it, teach second grade.)
There is a basic equation I learned when a school newspaper I ran was censored, and I distributed the story across the street from the school as a handbill produced at private expense: student + school == no rights period
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
The free speech issues are fun to debate about, but this is flikx's life we're talking about here. His top priority should be to get this settled and get his degree. That is what is going to have a long term influence on his life.
His best bet is to cool the rhetoric and talk frankly to the administration about putting this issue behind them. If they won't budge then he can see about getting a lawyer. But chances are if he calms down, they will too and the whole thing can be settled. He can get his degree, and then they won't have that leverage over him.
If he wants to he could then set up his web site elsewhere. The worst that will happen is that they would sue him and force him to take it down. He could fight with them if he wants and his only risk is legal expenses.
But I'll bet that once he is out of there he won't have much interest in this old battle. He'll be in a new place with new interests. Fighting with his old school administration won't seem so important once he has a new life.
Please remember that this *is* Utah we're talking about. Things like 'free speech' and 'separation of church and state' don't apply there.
This is the same state that voted to ban *all* school clubs in the K12 system rather than allow a single GLB student club to formed at a high school. Real open-minded, tolerant, Constitution-loving folks, those Mormons.
Of course, where I come from there's a big Mormon contingent in town courtesy of HP (they import from Utah rather than deal with 'heathens'), so my views on the bigoted, uptight, got-a-rod-of-righteousness-stuck-up-my-ass twits might just be a weeee bit biased....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
> This is simply not a free speech issue. The University of Utah, as do most universities, has
> a code of conduct. If he violated it, then they have no obligation to support his speech by
> lending him their servers, bandwidth, domain name, etc.
You missed the whole point to concentrate on one non-issue: the use of the university network. The University had and has no obligation to provide him with server and bandwidth, sure--but no one ever claimed they did. RED HERRING.
In addition, if he has violated the University's code of conduct, they have every right to expel him. But again, not the issue. Has he violated the code of conduct in the first place? Tell us how. Go and read their code of conduct and tell us exactly what he violated. You can't, can you? Then why go around assuming he did violate it? RED HERRING #2.
It *is* a free speech issue because the University is not only suspending and possibly expelling him *for operating a site that allowed nothing more than free speech*, but *claiming ownership of all his code, and all user comments*. That my friend is a FREE SPEECH issue.
No one *EVER* claimed that the University had an obligation to support him or his site. That is not the issue, and whoever modded you up to 5 is obviously on crack because what you've said is effectively an off-topic troll since you missed the mark entirely.
The real issue is, does the University have the right to steal his code and the users' comments and claim that they are the University's property? Now, unless there was a disclaimer saying so, then copyright for the users' posts belongs to the users, and copyright for the code belongs to the author, who was not writing it under contract or employment but who wrote it and gave it for use by the student government.
In addition, the University is not a private institution and as such, since it is a public institutuion that accepts state and federal money, has a legal obligation to not violate its student's Constitutional rights. That is an issue of FREE SPEECH and of CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS being ABUSED BY A GOVERNMENT ENTITY.
So everything you've said is wrong, and misses the boat entirely.
In addition, I have to add that since the Slashcode is GPL, the University cannot claim a copyright on it or the gentleman's modifications, even if he *were* doing it specifically "for" the University, as long as the gentleman made those modifications available to others as per the GPL's clauses.
So if you're reading, Mr. Martyr-for-Free-Speech, do you get what I'm hinting at? You can use your backups of the code you modified, to restart the site elsewhere, because if you've ever redistributed your modified Slashcode to anyone for public use, it's GPL and not copyrightable by the University. So, find some people you've distributed it to for their use, or get some close friends willing to lie about it, and the University can go fuck its Mormon self.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
IMHO, neither the University of Utah, nor anyone else, has any business whatsoever preventing open political discussion in a public forum.
That site was not UoU's intellectual property; it was no one's intellectual property. It is its own property; information is free. Those who opress information opress people; they are the proverbial bookburners. Their treacherous work is that of trying to dim the bright lights of human intellect. In the end, they will fail.
Meanwhile, I know what university I definitely will not be applying to come next fall...
Your university is screwing you! It is well-established legal precedent that ALL material is owed by the author unless that person takes positive action to give it away (IANAL). The FBI will likely take your side (esp. if you tell them that UofU DESTROYED EVIDENCE). Get a lawyer. NOW!! Run don't walk! And call the ACLU while you're at it! Call your congressmen! Call your senator! Talk to the Faculty, because if a student is censored and screwed today it will be them tomorrow! Band together with other students! You may not get your site back, but for the good of the 1st amendment DO NOT MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM. Fight Back! Give them ulcers and sleepless nights as payment. And, If they offer you a chance to leave with a degree if you just shut up and go away, FOR GOD SAKES TAKE IT! Don't ruin your career for a political fight you won't win:) PS: Tell us how it go's.
------- I saw a VW Beatle the other day. The vanity Plates said "FEATURE"
Please understand that the ACLU is a volenteer organization and as such has very limitied resources. They expend their resources on making "case law" (read, land mark rulings) that others can then use. IF you present this to them you will need to show them that this will create new case law. They don't have the resources to help just because you got screwed.
What you need is NATIONAL press. The down side of press is that they will also go to UofU for the other side. The U will use their professional PR flacks and if you did ANYTHING that can be spun the other way they will use it against you.
There are many sources of info on handling the press on the web. You are now in a marketing campaign to get your life back. For a start see:http://www.netpress.org/careandfeeding.html
As a hair ball sugestion, put your right for the code up on ebay. Describe in detail what the code does and that the that the rights are in dispute with UofU. Set a random high min bid (say $1M). Most likely ebay will kill the auction, but then call the big national press as well as your local AP stinger (see your local phone book).
If you are lucky some broader-minded U will invite you in.
And don't skimp on the lawyer. I have a couple of friends who got fucked in the ass (not literally heh) over something truly retarded because he went with a public defender.
Get the BEST lawyer you can. Do this before you do anything else!!
Don't talk to admin, don't do anything until you get a lawyer.
ummm... is U of U claiming IP rights to the slashcode???
I have been kicking ass on my web site (http://www.deserettribune.com) for nearly one year. We never really give it to anyone who doesn't have it coming. The law regarding defamation, libel and slander is quite clear - and it is a free speech issue. You should review the Supreme Court ruling about defamation concerning public figures: http://www.deserettribune.com/story/hustlervfalwel l.asp
Editor The Deseret Tribune
The link for Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell: Hustler v. Falwell This message board sucks - it doesn't properly allow html formatting.
Editor The Deseret Tribune
All I can say is ..... WOW!!!!!
And the 2002 Olympics are just around the corner!!!!!! Talk about a PR nightmare.
What I can't work out is, why the hey does anyone go to the University of Utah for anything but learning what it must have been like in the stalags. But then you remember that Utah has the highest per capita consumption of Prozac on the planet and it all.. makes... sense...
Utah: Nite of the Living Dead. The Mormons call themselves the LDS - guess that stands for Living Dead Souls. CREEPY.