What I'm advocating for now is voluntary compliance, for the following reasons (and nobody has tried to address #3 yet): It's a proven system of record keeping that verifies information like names of subjects, stage names, date of birth, name of photographer, consent (implied by completing affidavit), and the date the photos were taken. The legal responsibility for the accuracy and content of 2257 records remains with the record holder, and personal identifying information of the subjects of the photos (and the legal responsibility) remain off-wiki. It fulfills the licensing requirements of Creative Commons, saying that our images must be made available for commercial use, however currently our pornographic images CAN NOT be reused legally in the US for commercial purposes because they lack USC 2257. This falls way short of our "free content" ideals (as well as Commons:Licensing). All primary producers (photographers) and secondary producers (uploaders) of pornographic images in the US must keep records, even if the images were uploaded to Commons by using a pseudo-anonymous username. For this reason, sexual content transferred from Flickr without 2257 information should not be accepted.
all of these problems are with other people than us. Our copyright license permits commercial use, and does not apply to any potential problems other than copyright. This has nothing to do with our licensing. The reason nobody has answered this before is that it is irrelevant
The responsibility for following the law in uploads is with the uploaders. It would however be good to alert them to the potential problem.
On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Stillwater Rising stillwaterising@gmail.com wrote:
What I'm advocating for now is voluntary compliance, for the following reasons (and nobody has tried to address #3 yet): It's a proven system of record keeping that verifies information like names of subjects, stage names, date of birth, name of photographer, consent (implied by completing affidavit), and the date the photos were taken. The legal responsibility for the accuracy and content of 2257 records remains with the record holder, and personal identifying information of the subjects of the photos (and the legal responsibility) remain off-wiki. It fulfills the licensing requirements of Creative Commons, saying that our images must be made available for commercial use, however currently our pornographic images CAN NOT be reused legally in the US for commercial purposes because they lack USC 2257. This falls way short of our "free content" ideals (as well as Commons:Licensing). All primary producers (photographers) and secondary producers (uploaders) of pornographic images in the US must keep records, even if the images were uploaded to Commons by using a pseudo-anonymous username. For this reason, sexual content transferred from Flickr without 2257 information should not be accepted.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
David Goodman wrote:
all of these problems are with other people than us. Our copyright license permits commercial use, and does not apply to any potential problems other than copyright. This has nothing to do with our licensing. The reason nobody has answered this before is that it is irrelevant
The responsibility for following the law in uploads is with the uploaders. It would however be good to alert them to the potential problem.
That in essence is the problem. A whole bunch of people promote something called Wikimedia Foundation which says it owns and operates a number of sites.
and when anything controversial happens, whenever any one comes knocking, everyone runs for a bolt hole, or looks shifty and muttering "we got nuffin to do with it".
Its a tactic that allows Faux News to cast the Foundation as irresponsible jerks.
The foundation does not "own and operate" the site in the way that Fox news owns and operates their site. The foundation merely ensures that the site operates, functions, runs. It does not edit the contents of the site. That is the fundamental flaw in this argument. I really doubt that we are "promoting" the Foundation. I think we are "promoting" (if anything) the contents of the site, which contents are created, edited, loaded by the community. It is the uploader who is responsible for any legal issue regarding what they have uploaded. Not the foundation.
That is how the Wikimedia sites differ from a typical site. In the same way, Facebook is not legally responsible for some member uploaded nude pictures of their ex-boyfriend to their page. The user doing the uploading is responsible.
<<That in essence is the problem. A whole bunch of people promote something called Wikimedia Foundation which says it owns and operates a number of sites.
and when anything controversial happens, whenever any one comes knocking, everyone runs for a bolt hole, or looks shifty and muttering "we got nuffin to do with it".
Its a tactic that allows Faux News to cast the Foundation as irresponsible jerks.>>
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 1:11 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
David Goodman wrote:
all of these problems are with other people than us. Our copyright license permits commercial use, and does not apply to any potential problems other than copyright. This has nothing to do with our licensing. The reason nobody has answered this before is that it is irrelevant
The responsibility for following the law in uploads is with the uploaders. It would however be good to alert them to the potential problem.
That in essence is the problem. A whole bunch of people promote something called Wikimedia Foundation which says it owns and operates a number of sites.
and when anything controversial happens, whenever any one comes knocking, everyone runs for a bolt hole, or looks shifty and muttering "we got nuffin to do with it".
Its a tactic that allows Faux News to cast the Foundation as irresponsible jerks.
_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 5:54 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
The foundation does not "own and operate" the site in the way that Fox news owns and operates their site. The foundation merely ensures that the site operates, functions, runs. It does not edit the contents of the site. That is the fundamental flaw in this argument. I really doubt that we are "promoting" the Foundation. I think we are "promoting" (if anything) the contents of the site, which contents are created, edited, loaded by the community. It is the uploader who is responsible for any legal issue regarding what they have uploaded. Not the foundation.
That is how the Wikimedia sites differ from a typical site. In the same way, Facebook is not legally responsible for some member uploaded nude pictures of their ex-boyfriend to their page. The user doing the uploading is responsible.
Actually, it's not only the uploaders that have 18 USC 2257(A) record keeping requirements, *anybody* who "inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct" *or *"produces, assembles, manufactures, publishes, duplicates, reproduces, or reissues a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or digitally- or computer-manipulated image, picture, or other matter intended for commercial distribution" becomes a "secondary producerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protection_and_Obscenity_Enforcement_Act" and is subject to 18 USC 2257(A) record keeping requirements.[1]http://www.justice.gov/criminal/optf/guide/2257compliance-guide-revised.pdf
Violations of 2257 are punishable by up to five years in federal prison for a first offense and ten years for subsequent offenses. Violations of 2257A are punishable by up to one year in federal prison.[2]http://ilt.eff.org/index.php/2257_Reporting_Requirements
Hosting these images without 18 USC 2257(A) records, in my opinion, is a * no-win* situation for everyone involved.
Your over-broad reading of this law would effectively gut that other law which states that a "host" company is not responsible for what people are hosting.
Wouldn't it? Unless you're going to support what appears to be an unsupportable platform that "child porn" (or whatever you want to call it) is somehow different from any other type of content such as snuff films or instructions on how to build a fertilizer bomb or detailed plans for the assassination a leading figure.
Surely you can see that the obvious way these two laws would fit together is that a hosting company is not a producer, assembler, manufacturer, etc etc etc. Hosting companies enjoy the broadest exemption from any law targeting publishers.
To me, that's the obvious just position.
-----Original Message----- From: Stillwater Rising stillwaterising@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 4:50 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!
On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 5:54 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
The foundation does not "own and operate" the site in the way that Fox news owns and operates their site. The foundation merely ensures that the site operates, functions, runs. It does not edit the contents of the site. That is the fundamental flaw in this argument. I really doubt that we are "promoting" the Foundation. I think we are "promoting" (if anything) the contents of the site, which contents are created, edited, loaded by the community. It is the uploader who is responsible for any legal issue regarding what they have uploaded. Not the foundation.
That is how the Wikimedia sites differ from a typical site. In the same way, Facebook is not legally responsible for some member uploaded nude pictures of their ex-boyfriend to their page. The user doing the uploading is responsible.
Actually, it's not only the uploaders that have 18 USC 2257(A) record keeping requirements, *anybody* who "inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct" *or *"produces, assembles, manufactures, publishes, duplicates, reproduces, or reissues a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or digitally- or computer-manipulated image, picture, or other matter intended for commercial distribution" becomes a "secondary producerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protection_and_Obscenity_Enforcement_Act" and is subject to 18 USC 2257(A) record keeping requirements.[1]http://www.justice.gov/criminal/optf/guide/2257compliance-guide-revised.pdf
Violations of 2257 are punishable by up to five years in federal prison for a first offense and ten years for subsequent offenses. Violations of 2257A are punishable by up to one year in federal prison.[2]http://ilt.eff.org/index.php/2257_Reporting_Requirements
Hosting these images without 18 USC 2257(A) records, in my opinion, is a * no-win* situation for everyone involved. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
Your over-broad reading of this law would effectively gut that other law which states that a "host" company is not responsible for what people are hosting.
Wouldn't it? Unless you're going to support what appears to be an unsupportable platform that "child porn" (or whatever you want to call it) is somehow different from any other type of content such as snuff films or instructions on how to build a fertilizer bomb or detailed plans for the assassination a leading figure.
The question is whether the courts take a narrow reading of the safe-harbor exemptions, which is what they are increasing tending to do in other areas, such as copyright.
The main issue is whether the courts decide that the Foundation is equivalent to godaddy and wordpress, or whether it is more like Huffington Post.
wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
Wouldn't it? Unless you're going to support what appears to be an unsupportable platform that "child porn" (or whatever you want to call it) is somehow different from any other type of content such as snuff films or instructions on how to build a fertilizer bomb or detailed plans for the assassination a leading figure.
How to build such a bomb would be perfectly legal information. Advice about how it might be deployed for illegal purposes would not. A perfectly legitimate use of such a device might be to blow up stumps on one's own farm.
Ec
Stillwater Rising wrote:
Actually, it's not only the uploaders that have 18 USC 2257(A) record keeping requirements, *anybody* who "inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, an actual human being engaged in actual or simulated sexually explicit conduct" *or *"produces, assembles, manufactures, publishes, duplicates, reproduces, or reissues a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, or digitally- or computer-manipulated image, picture, or other matter intended for commercial distribution" becomes a "secondary producer
One important point in this lies in "intended for commercial distribution." The mere fact that others are allowed to use material for commercial distribution is quite short of *intent* for commercial distribution.
Ec
wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
The foundation does not "own and operate" the site in the way that Fox news owns and operates their site. The foundation merely ensures that the site operates, functions, runs. It does not edit the contents of the site. That is the fundamental flaw in this argument. I really doubt that we are "promoting" the Foundation. I think we are "promoting" (if anything) the contents of the site, which contents are created, edited, loaded by the community. It is the uploader who is responsible for any legal issue regarding what they have uploaded. Not the foundation.
That is how the Wikimedia sites differ from a typical site. In the same way, Facebook is not legally responsible for some member uploaded nude pictures of their ex-boyfriend to their page. The user doing the uploading is responsible.
Across the world the "Nobody is home" argument is quickly running out of steam. Google execs sentenced to 6 months in Italy, LimeWire guilty for its user's piracy, and blog owner found liable for user submitted libel.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/google_italy_trial http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/18/limewire_copyright_ruling http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/08/user_comments_ruling
the days of the internet being a free for all are coming to an end. If websites won't take responsibility, at least to the extent of having a policies in place which are enforced, then others will make it for them, by disabling access to the site.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org