ndiamond@watdaisy.UUCP (Norman Diamond) (11/16/84)
If I "borrow" the use of my employer's photocopier, does that make
them a publisher or a carrier?
Suppose I "borrow" the use of their VCR, which they intend only for
marketing and training demonstrations, but I make many copies of a
tape and mail the copies to others. Are they a publisher?
Telephone transmissions can be decoded by anyone with the necessary
equipment. Does this make a phone company a publisher?
Traditionally the publisher has been the person who decides that a
message should be widely distributed. The person with the printing
press only sells his/her services to the publisher.
If a bulletin board's sysop is regarded as a publisher, there will
be gigantic ramifications in other industries as well.
-- Norman Diamond
UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdaisy!ndiamond
CSNET: ndiamond%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet
ARPA: ndiamond%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpadmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (11/17/84)
> If I "borrow" the use of my employer's photocopier, does that make > them a publisher or a carrier? > Suppose I "borrow" the use of their VCR, which they intend only for > marketing and training demonstrations, but I make many copies of a > tape and mail the copies to others. Are they a publisher? > Telephone transmissions can be decoded by anyone with the necessary > equipment. Does this make a phone company a publisher? How is this relevant? In all these cases, the employer/phone company did not give permission for the distribution. The employer is neither publisher nor carrier. You, on the other hand, MAY be a publisher. > > Traditionally the publisher has been the person who decides that a > message should be widely distributed. The person with the printing > press only sells his/her services to the publisher. > > If a bulletin board's sysop is regarded as a publisher, there will > be gigantic ramifications in other industries as well. How about extending the same standard to bulletin boards? There must be some way of distinguishing between a publisher and someone who runs a private mailing list using current print media; couldn't this standard be applied to BBS's? If a BBS operator lets anyone have access to his system without requiring identification, is he not providing information to "the public"? Is this not "publishing"? I think you are trying to argue that the BBS operator is only providing the printing press for the person who actually posts the message. But in the case of the printing press operator, he is working under contract to the publisher, who is the one responsible for the content and the intended distribution of the paper or magazine - the publisher makes the decisions and must be responsible for them. In the case of the BBS, it is the BBS operator who has decided to use it to distribute information. Just because he says that he does not look at the information posted, does this mean he has no responsibility for it? Can a newspaper publish every letter it receives without editing and avoid liability for illegal acts that occur? I believe that if I sent a letter containing a stolen phone credit card number to the local newspaper, they would not publish it precisely for liability reasons. Dave Martindale