[Foundation-l] Legal requirements for sexual content -- help, please!

[wjhonson at aol.com]

 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 at gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at 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 at 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
producer<http://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.
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