The software is covered by copyrigth[sic].(for the simple reason that everything is, unless you've got an explicit statement from the creator placing the work under public domain)
There is a lot of material which is not suitable for copyright - tables of facts are not copyrightable, nor under many interpretations, are header files - as lists of names not creative works. However, yes, the software in question is under copyright.
For copying/redistributing copyrigthed[sic] works, one requires the permission of the copyrigth-holder.
correct
The GPL gives you a conditional permission: provided you follow certain rules, you are allowed.
Correct, but the software appears to be a 'attribution only' style license.
If you *don't* follow those rules, then the GPL does *not* give you permission to redistribute.
Correct, except....
It's irrelevant because the software in question isn't GPL
"If you follow the rules (your concideration), you can distribute (my concideration)" meets the criteria for a contract. Contracts supersede copyright law - per Sun v MS.
That's the argument. Not that they have a right to do what they are doing, but that "If they are in violation of anything, it's the contract, not copyright law."
Violating copyrights are $750/copy statutory. Plus the possibility of criminal prosecution. Contract violation boils down to pay what the costs are plus triple damages. Oops, the damages are $0, OK, I'll be generous, have a nickel.
The argument isn't about it's free it's about everyone is allowed to distribute under license, I'm just breaking my license.
They aren't saying that just because something is broadcast or presented for free, it's not covered under copyright. They are saying if everyone has a right to reproduce under a blanket license, then failing to live up to the license terms is a contract violation not copyright.
If Starwars was available with a license that said "make copies & give them to your friends but don't change anything", then changing things would be breach of contract not copyright infringement. The contract is:
My concideration: You may copy my work & distribute it.
Your concideration: I will not make any changes.
That satisfies the mutual exchange of conciderations required for a valid contract. If you make changes, you are breaking your contract, but that doesn't make the contract any less valid.
They haven't granted any non-exclusive right to publish or distribute the paper. They control the printing. Right of first sale allows people to resell or give away the paper they already bought. Copyright only governs the actual creation of new copies, not distribution of those copies following legal purchase.
The issue is that the license and the license alone is what permits the redistribution of the copyrighted materials. If you breach the license/contract/whatever, then without it, you have copyright infringement.
That's the whole argument, you can be in violation of a contract, but still not be breaking the governing law. The argument is not that the license is invalid - which would invoke copyright violations - the argument is "it's a valid contract and we are breaking it. Please sue us under contract law."
If, as a publisher, I have a contract to print 15,000 copies in 1 edition, and I print 15,002 copies, I am in violation of my contract, not copyright. I have a valid license to print the work, I just didn't follow the terms of it.
If, on the other hand, I print a second edition of 15,000 copies, then I am in violation of the copyright statutes, because I don't have a license to print them. - Yes it's a subtle difference, but that's what lawyers make their money on.
Likewise, the OSS projects grant a blanket license to everyone to copy, distribute, and create derivative works, subject to specific limitations. Therefor, everyone has a valid contract and violations of that contract are governed by contract law, not copyright law.
First the software in question isn't GPL, it's BSD - the only requirement is attribution.
Second, the Sun V MS decision - as spun by the defendant - says that granting blanket distribution rights under license transfers the issue from copyright law to contract law. In short, I am not violating copyright law, because I do have a license to copy. I am violating the contract, because I am not following the terms of the license, but not copyright.
If this was GPL, the auto revocation features may proof it against this, but it may take a cease & desist order prior to filing the actual copyright complaint.
No, what I meant is that what "fair use" has always been about/for/the/masses/ is about being able to make a copy of whatever TV or radio program you are watching/listening to for personal use.
That's how the masses generally use the fair use currently. However the fair use provisions aren't designed to allow you to do that. When SCOTUS ruled that the VCR had substantial non-infringing uses & ruled it's use as valid under fair use they were discussing the time shifting aspect - not the archiving. At the time, most people were not taping & keeping libraries of recorded shows, it was too expensive.
The whole concept of audio recording is only about 100 years old. The availability of recording devices to the masses dates to the 50's with reel-reel recorders, and only really took off in the 70's with the advent of cassette tapes. So, depending on how old you are, fair use may have always been about personal copying, but prior to the 70s fair use was about making sure that there could be cultural use of copyright material.
In the 30+ years since time shifting and format shifting have been real options for the masses, time shifting was fought and lost by the media companies. Archiving broadcasts was not addressed specifically, but has been subsumed within the time shifting rulings. Archival backups is even muddier. According to the rulings related to companies that create software to perform backups, it's illegal to make or sell the software to do them, if they can be used to facilitate piracy*, but it is still about 50/50 on whether the actual backup is legal.
Format shifting from Record to cassette, and CD to cassette were largely ignored by media companies - however, failure to enforce copyright in this instance does not grant that it is fair use. The RIAA lawyers indicated to SCOTUS that it was, but at the same time they implemented DRM which blocked it. Specifically blocking a fair use application of a copyright work can be abuse of copyright. So currently, there is no solid legal foundation for format shifting. There is a cultural foundation, but the law does not always recognize that as sufficient precedence.
*Not sure how any software can make a backup but not facilitate piracy also, but hey, law doesn't have to make sense in the greater scheme of things, just in the specific instance ruled upon.
Time shifting yes, retaining indefinitely no. Also format shifting has been an excepted use, but not one that has a large body of precedent behind it. That's the issue. Just because the media companies didn't attempt to enforce prohibitions against format shifting previously, doesn't mean it's a fair use. If format shifting were entirely permissible as fair use, DVD123 (which backed up to HD as well as other DVDs) would not have lost their case.
Note again that the RIAA lawyers stated to SCOTUS that format shifting was fair use, then they went to congress and complained that piracy is so bad they need to stop it. You only get to play both sides of the fence when there's no body of precedent. If format shifting is always fair use, then DRM which prevents format shifting is abuse of copyright. If it's not always fair use, then DRM can be used to prevent it.
No company dependent on copyright enforcement for it's livelyhood is going to deliberately take a stand where they are abusing their copyrights. Abuse of copyrights can result in loosing the right to enforce them in cases related to the abuse.
I should be able to make a copy, for personal use, of any content that I can receive, whether it is broadcast for free or (especially) if paid for.
This is what Fair Use has always been understood to mean, in addition to being able to use small excerpts for review or educational purposes.
It was about us popping a tape in our VCR or radio and making a recording.
Ummm.... no. It's never was about that. Fair use is certainly about Parody, Commentary, and Quoting. There is no argument about any of that. That's pretty much settled case law. How much you can copy for Education is more case by case, but it's still got a lot of leeway.
The concept of broadcasting caused some large waves in the whole copyright/fair use issue. There were in fact arguments that stations should pay per receiver tuned to their channel. The concept of recording those broadcasts didn't come about until the late 50's [IIRC].
It was the Betamax case which determined that timeshifting was a fair use of broadcast material. But remember, when tapes cost $15 each, people didn't make collections. You taped, time shifted & reused. That was what was determined to be fair use. The permanent recording & collecting was not addressed as such.
As for format-shifting, there is a history of acceptance, but very little in terms of case law explicitly saying that "A consumer may copy records they own on LP's to Tape."
Software on floppies used to have a notice that the first thing you should do is copy the disk & put it in a safe place - use only the duplicates for daily use. That was a grant from the copyright holder to make the backup, not a fair use mandate.
With the advent of digital storage and networking, the concept of music/video/images as IP distinct from the physical media they are stored on was created. There is very little case law regarding what is and is not fair use for digital information. There are things which are not fair use. Digitally transferring 12K copies of your favorite album to 12K complete strangers is not fair use. Is streaming that same album to your best friend? It might be if the use is analogous to holding the phone to the speaker. If you stream that album to them every day, it stops being fair use.
Is ripping your CD collection to create a digital jukebox fair use? The RIAA said it was when talking to SCOTUS, but they are pushing DMCA & DRM to prohibit it anyway - in the name of protecting copyright owners. In short, there is not & never has been and explicit exception in Copyright law which permits you make a copy for yourself. There has been the agreement that it was permissible since the 60s, but no codification. If format shifting is fair use, then current DRM applications are invalid as they prohibit a fair use - which means that the whole DVD123 case needs to be re-decided.
Is arguing a traffic ticket really that much more complex than setting up a multi-homed VPN?
Well, when you do 2 installs of the same multi-homed VPN on 2 identical spec systems from different MFGs, you can expect that with a few tweaks of names etc, they will work. Changing the name on the case doesn't change that much. Change the name of the Judge & everything changes, so in that case, it seems that law would be a lot less easy to explain in absolutes. For IT 2+2=int(4) every time. With the law, it should work that way, but until it's over, it's anyones guess.
Original
It's not unusual at all. CPUs are very general and do certain things very quickly & efficiently. GPUs on the other hand do other things very quickly and efficiently. The type of number crunching that GPUs do is actually well suited to the massively repetitive number crunching done by most of the big super computers [think climatology studies]. Shifting from CPU to GPU architectures just makes sense there.
Actually, they can't charge whatever they want. Radio & public performaces like this are covered under a separate portion of the copyright law - they pay to an organization & the organization distributes to the artists/owners. The fee is set by the government & makes no distinction between pop or classical.
Should we bother sending Balmer & Dvorak copies of the LGPL, or should we just let them Google for it? This has got to be one of the dumbest things this man has ever spewed forth.
Off the top of my head, so that you can identify all of the addresses/messages he has sent out.... perhaps employing that data in a class action suit against him....... how many emails did he sent off - $500 each - class action status --- that would eat him alive.
From my understanding this isn't Verizon the ISP dropping a website, this is MCI the peer dropping an ISP into the void. Peerage isn't data/voice - it's all data at that level. Only the last mile is analog anymore.
Also, from reading the article, there doesn't seem to be any violation of the TOS. There is no content which is identified as illegal - and the Canadian authorities appear to have looked hard and often at them. From their name, they appear to be catering to people with a youth fetish - note young adult not pre-pubescent kids. We are talking - "check your local statutes, they might be legal for you in the next few months" type fetishes, not "how cute, their voice hasn't even changed yet" ones.
From the article, one of the previous webmasters of one of the sites listed by 'PJ', they heavily self-sensor out crap that may be illegal - so unless Verizon is planning on purging out every ISP that hosts sites with similar content [including all the fan sites for Kiera Knightly (17 in Pirates)], this does constitute censoring content - because an ISP cannot just find another peer. They are targeting a specific type of content - deemed legal - and blocking it. If they, as a public utility, get to choose their customers, then they need to loose their status as a public utility. This should not be an issue, they service everyone with a legal business and get right of way & legal monopoly protections, or they get to choose & they loose them. It's either/or not pick & choose.
Does a bus forfeit common-carrier status by refusing to carry passengers without shoes? They do not.
That would depend entirely on a large number of things, including health code, historical conduct, published codes of conduct, etc. If the company has historically transported people without shoes, and doesn't transport 1 person - then yes, they can loose their status.
In this case, Verizon either has to purge all ISPs hosting similar sites, or loose the protections of Common Carrier status. It's not a matter of choosing an individual and refusing them service, it's all or nothing - or loose common carrier status.
Does a trucking company forfeit common carrier status because they refuse to carry live animals? They do not.
Not a valid comparison, live animals are an entirely different category of cargo from inert cargo - in fact different groups of live freight are treated differently, cattle & horses tend to be handled the same, but very different from chickens. More valid would be - "Does a trucking company loose it's common carrier status for refusing to carry televisions while carrying stereos?" The answer there would be yes.
How, as a tier 2 provider, do you find another Tier 1 provider? It's not like they are everywhere. Most Tier 1's cover a specific geographical region and competition is legally barred in that zone. IE - there is nobody else to go to.
That's the issue here, to maintain it's common carrier status, Verizon-the-tier-1, has to provide service to everyone as long as what they do is legal, and they pay their bill. They don't get to choose, and in exchange, they get immunity from lawsuits regarding such minor things as facilitating copyright infringement etc... Per the Canadian legal system, they are not breaking any laws, and they are evidently paying the bills.... so cutting them off is a violation of the Common Carrier status, thus - they loose the protections based on that status.
gear up RIAA, you might just recover your $325M lost to piracy.....
The division of Verizon in question is a Tier 1 peer, they are one of about a dozen [style:big ass & blinking]major[/style] data carriers in NA. AOL & Verizon@home are both ISP's. They provide consumer grade products, not commercial transport. Different rules apply to the 2 groups of companies. In this case Verizon@home would be liable for hosting obscene material, whereas Verizon - the peer - isn't for transporting the same material.
Gay men who are young and/or look young are called boys. Again, I haven't seen the sight but "boys" is a term commonly used and it does not carry the connotation of pedophilia.
Hmm, my gay friends usually call them Twinkies if they are blond.... I leave the reasons to the reader....
Per the article, Canadian standards are higher for this than US standards. I haven't checked the actual sites at issue, but generally 'minor attracted' is not the same as 'pedophile'. The impression I am getting is physically mature but still jailbait. And just to show just how hypocritical US law is, Utah[iirc] recognizes both Statutory & Common Law marriages - with a minimum age of 16 for Statutory and no minimum age for Common Law.
So, if you sleep with a 14yr old girl & call her your wife, it's OK, but don't try to go to the JP for paperwork - cause that would be just wrong.
Verizon as a backbone carrier is a common carrier. All of the Tier 1 and most of the Tier 2 peers are classed as common carriers. They collect data at a peer point and transfer it to another peer point without regard to origin, destination, or content. In exchange for that function, they are not responsible for the actual content of that data. Because they are making a decision like this based on content, they violate the common carrier duties - ergo, the question becomes does this also mean they loose the protections, thus enabling IP companies to go after them for filesharing violations.
Just to point out the obvious, I'll note that the speech also has to be false for the plaintiff to collect damages
Not so obvious and not nessesarily true. There are several countries where truth is not a defense against a libel suit. In those cases it's a matter of 'publishing with intent to cause harm' which governs as opposed to publishing false information.
You are forgetting dynamic IP assignment for dialup services. And Lease expirations resulting in multiple entries for IP addresses that change for DSL & Cable modems. The dialup logs fill up a lot faster than you are giving them credit for
Slashdot Mirror
- The software is covered by copyrigth[sic].(for the simple reason that everything is, unless you've got an explicit statement from the creator placing the work under public domain)
- For copying/redistributing copyrigthed[sic] works, one requires the permission of the copyrigth-holder.
- The GPL gives you a conditional permission: provided you follow certain rules, you are allowed.
- If you *don't* follow those rules, then the GPL does *not* give you permission to redistribute.
- It's irrelevant because the software in question isn't GPL
- "If you follow the rules (your concideration), you can distribute (my concideration)" meets the criteria for a contract. Contracts supersede copyright law - per Sun v MS.
That's the argument. Not that they have a right to do what they are doing, but that "If they are in violation of anything, it's the contract, not copyright law."There is a lot of material which is not suitable for copyright - tables of facts are not copyrightable, nor under many interpretations, are header files - as lists of names not creative works. However, yes, the software in question is under copyright.
correct
Correct, but the software appears to be a 'attribution only' style license.
Correct, except ....
Violating copyrights are $750/copy statutory. Plus the possibility of criminal prosecution. Contract violation boils down to pay what the costs are plus triple damages. Oops, the damages are $0, OK, I'll be generous, have a nickel.
They aren't saying that just because something is broadcast or presented for free, it's not covered under copyright. They are saying if everyone has a right to reproduce under a blanket license, then failing to live up to the license terms is a contract violation not copyright.
If Starwars was available with a license that said "make copies & give them to your friends but don't change anything", then changing things would be breach of contract not copyright infringement. The contract is:
- My concideration: You may copy my work & distribute it.
- Your concideration: I will not make any changes.
That satisfies the mutual exchange of conciderations required for a valid contract. If you make changes, you are breaking your contract, but that doesn't make the contract any less valid.They haven't granted any non-exclusive right to publish or distribute the paper. They control the printing. Right of first sale allows people to resell or give away the paper they already bought. Copyright only governs the actual creation of new copies, not distribution of those copies following legal purchase.
That's the whole argument, you can be in violation of a contract, but still not be breaking the governing law. The argument is not that the license is invalid - which would invoke copyright violations - the argument is "it's a valid contract and we are breaking it. Please sue us under contract law."
If, as a publisher, I have a contract to print 15,000 copies in 1 edition, and I print 15,002 copies, I am in violation of my contract, not copyright. I have a valid license to print the work, I just didn't follow the terms of it.
If, on the other hand, I print a second edition of 15,000 copies, then I am in violation of the copyright statutes, because I don't have a license to print them. - Yes it's a subtle difference, but that's what lawyers make their money on.
Likewise, the OSS projects grant a blanket license to everyone to copy, distribute, and create derivative works, subject to specific limitations. Therefor, everyone has a valid contract and violations of that contract are governed by contract law, not copyright law.
First the software in question isn't GPL, it's BSD - the only requirement is attribution.
Second, the Sun V MS decision - as spun by the defendant - says that granting blanket distribution rights under license transfers the issue from copyright law to contract law. In short, I am not violating copyright law, because I do have a license to copy. I am violating the contract, because I am not following the terms of the license, but not copyright.
If this was GPL, the auto revocation features may proof it against this, but it may take a cease & desist order prior to filing the actual copyright complaint.
The whole concept of audio recording is only about 100 years old. The availability of recording devices to the masses dates to the 50's with reel-reel recorders, and only really took off in the 70's with the advent of cassette tapes. So, depending on how old you are, fair use may have always been about personal copying, but prior to the 70s fair use was about making sure that there could be cultural use of copyright material.
In the 30+ years since time shifting and format shifting have been real options for the masses, time shifting was fought and lost by the media companies. Archiving broadcasts was not addressed specifically, but has been subsumed within the time shifting rulings. Archival backups is even muddier. According to the rulings related to companies that create software to perform backups, it's illegal to make or sell the software to do them, if they can be used to facilitate piracy*, but it is still about 50/50 on whether the actual backup is legal.
Format shifting from Record to cassette, and CD to cassette were largely ignored by media companies - however, failure to enforce copyright in this instance does not grant that it is fair use. The RIAA lawyers indicated to SCOTUS that it was, but at the same time they implemented DRM which blocked it. Specifically blocking a fair use application of a copyright work can be abuse of copyright. So currently, there is no solid legal foundation for format shifting. There is a cultural foundation, but the law does not always recognize that as sufficient precedence.
*Not sure how any software can make a backup but not facilitate piracy also, but hey, law doesn't have to make sense in the greater scheme of things, just in the specific instance ruled upon.
Time shifting yes, retaining indefinitely no. Also format shifting has been an excepted use, but not one that has a large body of precedent behind it. That's the issue. Just because the media companies didn't attempt to enforce prohibitions against format shifting previously, doesn't mean it's a fair use. If format shifting were entirely permissible as fair use, DVD123 (which backed up to HD as well as other DVDs) would not have lost their case. Note again that the RIAA lawyers stated to SCOTUS that format shifting was fair use, then they went to congress and complained that piracy is so bad they need to stop it. You only get to play both sides of the fence when there's no body of precedent. If format shifting is always fair use, then DRM which prevents format shifting is abuse of copyright. If it's not always fair use, then DRM can be used to prevent it. No company dependent on copyright enforcement for it's livelyhood is going to deliberately take a stand where they are abusing their copyrights. Abuse of copyrights can result in loosing the right to enforce them in cases related to the abuse.
Ummm.... no. It's never was about that. Fair use is certainly about Parody, Commentary, and Quoting. There is no argument about any of that. That's pretty much settled case law. How much you can copy for Education is more case by case, but it's still got a lot of leeway.
The concept of broadcasting caused some large waves in the whole copyright/fair use issue. There were in fact arguments that stations should pay per receiver tuned to their channel. The concept of recording those broadcasts didn't come about until the late 50's [IIRC].
It was the Betamax case which determined that timeshifting was a fair use of broadcast material. But remember, when tapes cost $15 each, people didn't make collections. You taped, time shifted & reused. That was what was determined to be fair use. The permanent recording & collecting was not addressed as such.
As for format-shifting, there is a history of acceptance, but very little in terms of case law explicitly saying that "A consumer may copy records they own on LP's to Tape."
Software on floppies used to have a notice that the first thing you should do is copy the disk & put it in a safe place - use only the duplicates for daily use. That was a grant from the copyright holder to make the backup, not a fair use mandate.
With the advent of digital storage and networking, the concept of music/video/images as IP distinct from the physical media they are stored on was created. There is very little case law regarding what is and is not fair use for digital information. There are things which are not fair use. Digitally transferring 12K copies of your favorite album to 12K complete strangers is not fair use. Is streaming that same album to your best friend? It might be if the use is analogous to holding the phone to the speaker. If you stream that album to them every day, it stops being fair use.
Is ripping your CD collection to create a digital jukebox fair use? The RIAA said it was when talking to SCOTUS, but they are pushing DMCA & DRM to prohibit it anyway - in the name of protecting copyright owners. In short, there is not & never has been and explicit exception in Copyright law which permits you make a copy for yourself. There has been the agreement that it was permissible since the 60s, but no codification. If format shifting is fair use, then current DRM applications are invalid as they prohibit a fair use - which means that the whole DVD123 case needs to be re-decided.
Well, when you do 2 installs of the same multi-homed VPN on 2 identical spec systems from different MFGs, you can expect that with a few tweaks of names etc, they will work. Changing the name on the case doesn't change that much. Change the name of the Judge & everything changes, so in that case, it seems that law would be a lot less easy to explain in absolutes.
For IT 2+2=int(4) every time. With the law, it should work that way, but until it's over, it's anyones guess.
Please, you don't get jailtime for littering - you get caned. They can't be bothered to house & feed you for something as minor as littering.
Original
It's not unusual at all. CPUs are very general and do certain things very quickly & efficiently. GPUs on the other hand do other things very quickly and efficiently. The type of number crunching that GPUs do is actually well suited to the massively repetitive number crunching done by most of the big super computers [think climatology studies]. Shifting from CPU to GPU architectures just makes sense there.
Actually, they can't charge whatever they want. Radio & public performaces like this are covered under a separate portion of the copyright law - they pay to an organization & the organization distributes to the artists/owners. The fee is set by the government & makes no distinction between pop or classical.
Should we bother sending Balmer & Dvorak copies of the LGPL, or should we just let them Google for it?
This has got to be one of the dumbest things this man has ever spewed forth.
Off the top of my head, so that you can identify all of the addresses/messages he has sent out .... perhaps employing that data in a class action suit against him ....... how many emails did he sent off - $500 each - class action status --- that would eat him alive.
From my understanding this isn't Verizon the ISP dropping a website, this is MCI the peer dropping an ISP into the void. Peerage isn't data/voice - it's all data at that level. Only the last mile is analog anymore.
Also, from reading the article, there doesn't seem to be any violation of the TOS. There is no content which is identified as illegal - and the Canadian authorities appear to have looked hard and often at them. From their name, they appear to be catering to people with a youth fetish - note young adult not pre-pubescent kids. We are talking - "check your local statutes, they might be legal for you in the next few months" type fetishes, not "how cute, their voice hasn't even changed yet" ones.
From the article, one of the previous webmasters of one of the sites listed by 'PJ', they heavily self-sensor out crap that may be illegal - so unless Verizon is planning on purging out every ISP that hosts sites with similar content [including all the fan sites for Kiera Knightly (17 in Pirates)], this does constitute censoring content - because an ISP cannot just find another peer. They are targeting a specific type of content - deemed legal - and blocking it. If they, as a public utility, get to choose their customers, then they need to loose their status as a public utility. This should not be an issue, they service everyone with a legal business and get right of way & legal monopoly protections, or they get to choose & they loose them. It's either/or not pick & choose.
They are the Tier 1 Peer covering the area - so yes, they should be common carrier.
In this case, Verizon either has to purge all ISPs hosting similar sites, or loose the protections of Common Carrier status. It's not a matter of choosing an individual and refusing them service, it's all or nothing - or loose common carrier status. Does a trucking company forfeit common carrier status because they refuse to carry live animals? They do not. Not a valid comparison, live animals are an entirely different category of cargo from inert cargo - in fact different groups of live freight are treated differently, cattle & horses tend to be handled the same, but very different from chickens. More valid would be - "Does a trucking company loose it's common carrier status for refusing to carry televisions while carrying stereos?" The answer there would be yes.
How, as a tier 2 provider, do you find another Tier 1 provider? It's not like they are everywhere. Most Tier 1's cover a specific geographical region and competition is legally barred in that zone. IE - there is nobody else to go to.
That's the issue here, to maintain it's common carrier status, Verizon-the-tier-1, has to provide service to everyone as long as what they do is legal, and they pay their bill. They don't get to choose, and in exchange, they get immunity from lawsuits regarding such minor things as facilitating copyright infringement etc... Per the Canadian legal system, they are not breaking any laws, and they are evidently paying the bills.... so cutting them off is a violation of the Common Carrier status, thus - they loose the protections based on that status.
gear up RIAA, you might just recover your $325M lost to piracy.....
The division of Verizon in question is a Tier 1 peer, they are one of about a dozen [style:big ass & blinking]major[/style] data carriers in NA. AOL & Verizon@home are both ISP's. They provide consumer grade products, not commercial transport. Different rules apply to the 2 groups of companies. In this case Verizon@home would be liable for hosting obscene material, whereas Verizon - the peer - isn't for transporting the same material.
Per the article, Canadian standards are higher for this than US standards. I haven't checked the actual sites at issue, but generally 'minor attracted' is not the same as 'pedophile'. The impression I am getting is physically mature but still jailbait. And just to show just how hypocritical US law is, Utah[iirc] recognizes both Statutory & Common Law marriages - with a minimum age of 16 for Statutory and no minimum age for Common Law.
So, if you sleep with a 14yr old girl & call her your wife, it's OK, but don't try to go to the JP for paperwork - cause that would be just wrong.
Verizon as a backbone carrier is a common carrier. All of the Tier 1 and most of the Tier 2 peers are classed as common carriers. They collect data at a peer point and transfer it to another peer point without regard to origin, destination, or content. In exchange for that function, they are not responsible for the actual content of that data. Because they are making a decision like this based on content, they violate the common carrier duties - ergo, the question becomes does this also mean they loose the protections, thus enabling IP companies to go after them for filesharing violations.
You are forgetting dynamic IP assignment for dialup services. And Lease expirations resulting in multiple entries for IP addresses that change for DSL & Cable modems. The dialup logs fill up a lot faster than you are giving them credit for