[Foundation-l] THE SWOT (the return)

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 10/28/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> *legal (16)

I find this very very interesting.

I've always been an advocate of being extra-diligent on legal
matters... but not because I believed our situation was precarious.
Rather, I believe it is important to be diligent in our patrolling of
libel because libel has the risk of hurting people, and I believe it
is important to strictly conform on copyright because our mission is
strongly oriented around Free Content.

Unless there is a law change in the US we have a pretty strong
position legally in both those areas.

Of course, law changes are always possible but with over 2 billion USD
recently invested by companies into 'user submitted content' sites
(youtube and myspace) which would both be far more hurt than us by a
substantial change in the law... I just don't see it happening.

Although, I also didn't foresee the outcome of the Napster case... so
perhaps my crystal ball isn't very good.  But as I said, I see plenty
of non-legal reasons to be careful with our actions.. I'm just a
little surprised to see 'legal' named as the highest threat.