On 22 Jun 2001, at 12:03, Steve Schear wrote:
I don't understand how DMCA comes into play for content already ripped by someone else.
You're correct, of course. It doesn't.
Does @Home also filter & grab NNTP requests to servers they don't control, like some other ISP is filtering & grabbing SMTP?
I don't think so, but have never checked.
It seems that one ploy the digital video posters could use is to select a popular, innocuous, news group, and add their content. @Home would then be forced to either filter binaries from that group or take it offline, offending a lot of innocent users.
steve
They're not forced to do anything. They're probably under the delusion that they're safer from liability if they ban groups whose names imply pirated content. It's not their fault if somebody puts metallica mp3s in alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork, but what the hell did anyone expect to be in alt.binaries.metallica? I think actually they're shooting themselves in the foot. If they excercise no editorial control at all over their news servers they're protecyed as common carriers, whereas if they do excercise some control, they might be considered to approve of whatever they let through. OTOH, they're probably rich enough to be safe anyway. George