RE: [dvd-discuss]DMCA and the Church Of Scientology

[Richard Hartman <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

The problem is that Google is not posting any of the Scientology
stuff ... it is merely _generating_ a _report_ of what is out there.
There is no authoring of the pages involved.

This request amounts to a request to skew the data.  I think Google
reports should always reflect what is actually found and not be subject
to post-processing.

First ... if the CoS has a case against anybody, it would be against
the sites that Google discovers, not Google themselves.  

Second ... as with an ISP, Google should be indemnified since they
are providing a service and it is not a case of people creating the 
pages.  A long time ago Prodigy or AOL had an issue w/ moderating
their chat boards.  The issue was similar to the current ISP issue
... once you start mucking about with restricting some things, then
you have taken responsibility for the content rathern than taking 
the role of a passive conduit.  Once you have taken that responsiblity
then you are liable for anything you did _not_ restrict.  It is safer
(and more realistic) to let the individual posters be responsible for
their postings (or web sites) than that the service provider do so.


-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dean Sanchez [mailto:DSanchez@fcci-group.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:12 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss]DMCA and the Church Of Scientology 
> 
> 
> I think that it is referring to the part of the DMCA that was 
> added to indemnify ISPs from copyright infringement - the 
> takedown notice.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Hosgood [mailto:steve@caederus.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 5:26 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss]DMCA and the Church Of Scientology 
> 
> 
> Michael Rolenz wrote:
> >              KEY POINTS
> > 
> >                  Most popular and independent
> >                  search engine is not infallable
> >                  Digital Millennium Copyright Act
> >                  being levered
> >                  Anti Church of Scientology website
> >                  blamed
> > 
> 
> How on earth can the Scientologists argue a way to misuse the DMCA so
> thoroughly as to get it into a case like this? There's surely 
> no issue of
> Google somehow "bypassing a TPM" protecting a copyright work of the
> Scientologists is there?
> 
> This is a straightforward-looking trademark dispute if it's 
> anything. The
> only thing that seems vaguely "digital" about it is that it's 
> a cyberspace
> dispute rather than a realworld one.
> 
> Or is there more to it?
> 
> Whatever, the more sad-git misuses of the DMCA, the better. 
> It will help
> reduce the respect given to it - even by judges eventually.
> 
> --
> 
> Steve Hosgood                               |
> steve@caederus.com                          | "A good plan 
> today is better
> Phone: +44 1792 203707 + ask for Steve      |   than a 
> perfect plan tomorrow"
> Fax:   +44 70922 70944                      |              - 
> Conrad Brean
> --------------------------------------------+
>         http://tallyho.bc.nu/~steve         |  ( from the 
> film "Wag the Dog" )
> 
>