[WikiEN-l] That random number

[Tim Starling]

Todd Allen wrote:
> On 5/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> Delirium wrote:
>>> Excessive avoidance of activities that are not likely to result in legal
>>> troubles, but which some people irrationally fear might, is pretty much
>>> the definition of "chilling effects" style paranoia.
>>>
>>> Seriously, do you think *mailing list archives*, and
>>> non-search-engine-indexed ones at that, are actually illegal?  It's not
>>> even clear that such archives legally constitute publication, and
>>> certainly they are far less high profile than many other sources that
>>> have *not* been held legally accountable in any way, such as Google's
>>> own archives, or Wired's explicit publication.
>>>
>> The DMCA does not prohibit publication, it prohibits "trafficking". The
>> MPAA vs Corely case held that publication on a website constitutes
>> trafficking, and this was upheld at appeal. The Act specifies damages of
>> $200-$2500 per "act of circumvention, device, product, component, offer,
>> or performance of service". Presumably every time someone downloads the
>> number from the mailing list archive, and every time we send it to someone
>> by email, this constitues trafficking of such a device.
>>
>> WikiEN-L has 878 members, so sending the key to the list would create a
>> liability of between $175,600 and $2.2M, plus archive downloads and what not.
> 
> If "trafficking" were as simple as "making the number show up on
> someone's computer screen", they'd get a lot more mileage out of suing
> Google than us. And there -are- exceptions built into the law for
> academic use of the number. This isn't the same as the 2600 case, nor
> MPAA vs. Corel. Neither of those institutions are primarily academic
> and educational in nature, nor are they nonprofit. They've actually
> been pretty hesitant to sue academic users, because they -know- that's
> not one they'll probably win.

Delirium didn't ask "will they sue us?", he asked "is it illegal?" The
answer is to the latter question is almost certainly yes. Which academic
exception do you think is relevant exactly?

-- Tim Starling