Personally, I think their best market would be for electronic texts (since the real things are so damn expensive anyway). I just can't wait to get into to med school, only to have my ass sued off for allowing a fellow classmate to take a look at my smart card-encrypted, restricted-licensed anatomy textbook... oh joy.
ah, but can we not let an old man have some peace? so what if einstein spent his days sailing his little boat instead of single-mindedly persuing every nook and cranny of theoretical physics. scientists can be seen like artists: they create their works and persue their talents for their own reasons; they don't owe us, the public, anything. just ask piro...
no disrespect meant, but these people are allowed to have their own lives and they're quite capable of making their own decisions.
"Developments like this really offer tremendous opportunities for creating a family for those who cannot have children the old fashioned way."
reminds me of the strip where calvin asks his dad where babies come from. It went something like "Most people buy kits from Sears, but your mom and I got yours at Kmart, on a Blue Dot special."
Here's a general translation/summary of the article:
The Court of Appeals of Paris is fining altern.org 405,000 Francs in damages on behalf of Estelle Halladay, because one of the sites that altern.org hosts had nude caricatures of her, originally published in the magazine Voici. Valentine Lacambre, the provider of altern.org is being blamed in this lawsuit, not the author of the web site.
Last December, in another lawsuit, the ISP Le Village was sued over a webpage featuring gory pictures from horror films. Estelle Halladay's lawyer, said that the provider of altern.org is as responsible for altern.org's content as the owner of newspaper would be. Jacques Bitoun, a lawyer specialising in new technologies, said that the provider must check over the content of their websites, and take action when necessary.
Providers, alarmed by this lawsuit, point out that it is impossible to control all the member pages. They point out that anyone can post anything, and the simplicity of doing this and the huge number of providers makes such control impossible. Michel Mayer, owner of the web host Multimania, which currently has 70,000 members and gains about 300 per day, said providers cannot be held responsible for the sites they host, because members can change the content at any time, so it is financially and humanly impossible to control it all. "If I had to control all the new pages on my site," says Lacambre, "I would [rather?] die."
The condemnation of altern.org is suprising. Admittedly, two providers were sued in 1996 because illegal images were found on discussion forums that they hosted. But, since then, the situation has calmed down: the majority of web hosts have set up strict anti-porn charters, and have removed pornographical, pedophilical, and anti-governmental sites. Besides, Valentine Lecambre removed the images of Estella Halladay before her lawsuit in April of 1998. Before this suit, when a lawsuit over questionable content was brought about, the host was not blamed, and, instead, helped the legal authorities in locating the member who's site is in question. Such happened to Michel Mayer, over a site that illegally posted music.
For the moment, Valentine Lecambre has denied any new members from joining altern.org. A petition for the reversal of the Court of Appeal's decision has been put online on the Web. Iris Association has called for a "huge international mobilization" over this case. And, according to Gilles Gavez, there are "more than twenty other sites" where you can get these pictures.
===End of Translation===
Sorry for any errors in this translation. Please support altern.org, as I also heve a web site there. The member who's site is in question should be held responsible, not the provider.
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blessed are the beermakers!
Personally, I think their best market would be for electronic texts (since the real things are so damn expensive anyway). I just can't wait to get into to med school, only to have my ass sued off for allowing a fellow classmate to take a look at my smart card-encrypted, restricted-licensed anatomy textbook... oh joy.
ah, but can we not let an old man have some peace? so what if einstein spent his days sailing his little boat instead of single-mindedly persuing every nook and cranny of theoretical physics. scientists can be seen like artists: they create their works and persue their talents for their own reasons; they don't owe us, the public, anything. just ask piro...
no disrespect meant, but these people are allowed to have their own lives and they're quite capable of making their own decisions.
"Developments like this really offer tremendous opportunities for creating a family for those who cannot have children the old fashioned way." reminds me of the strip where calvin asks his dad where babies come from. It went something like "Most people buy kits from Sears, but your mom and I got yours at Kmart, on a Blue Dot special."
Ok, to clarify the issue: they were NOT nude photos. They were drawings/caricatures of Estelle nude.
Sorry for any errors in this translation. Please support altern.org, as I also heve a web site there. The member who's site is in question should be held responsible, not the provider.
Don't forget, GNUstep's API will be compatible with that used by OpenStep and Mac OS X.