From: chuq@Apple.COM (Eeyore's Evil Twin)
Newsgroups: xxxxx
Subject: alt.binary.pictures.you.know.what (flame war about to start)
Date: 17 Nov 92 03:42:40 GMT
Followup-To: alt.config
Distribution: apple
Organization: Pooh Corner Country Club -- A Planned Community

I'm about to start a flame war. People with any sanity are hereby warned to
clear the area. I don't do this lightly, but it needs to be done.

Tonight on another network I received a copy of a news article reporting on
a recent settlement between Playboy Magazine and an Oregon Adult BBS.
Playboy was awarded $500,000 because of the scanning and distribution of
Playboy copyrighted pictures on the BBS in blatant disregard of Playboy's
copyrights. (note: I'm not distributing the text of the article so as to not
violate ITS copyright, but if you want the whole thing, email me).

Part of the agreement was that the sysop of that BBS would cooperate fully
with Playboy in locating, identifying and prosecuting other BBSes that
distribute material in violation of copyright, and Playboy announced that it
intended to prosecute vigorously.

You folks can probably figure out where this is heading. Part of our apple
newsfeed are the alt.sex.nudge&wink picture groups, and a large percentage
(at least 50%) are clearly pirated works that are being distributed in
violation of copyright. (how do I know? research. It's a dirty job, but
someone has to do it.)

Apple as a computer company relies heavily on copyright to protect it's
software and other materials (among other avenues), and so, personally, I
feel it's very difficult to support a newsgroup that not only encourages
such violations, but basically depends on them. 

That's a minor issue, though. The major issue is that the newsgroups are
illegal, and even as a passive store-and-forward on a network that does
this, Apple as a corporation is legally at risk to be prosecuted because of
these groups and could well lose a judgement should a suit be brought. We
now have clear evidence that such suits are happening and are being won
against the BBSes, so we can't pretend that nobody will notice or that
nobody will bother -- it is happening.

Because of this, since I'm now running apple.com (which is, I believe, the
only source of this stuff within apple), I'm serving notice to the reader
population of my intent to disable those groups that are generally known to
be violating copyrights on the network. I'm not setting a date for this yet,
because (1) I want to have a discussion of this with the reader community so
the issues are well known before anything happens, and (2) I have hope that
maybe someone will come up with an alternative or compromise that we
can live with that also protects Apple from possible legal action. I will
say, however, that I'm leaning towards a December 1 deadline. That can move
forward or backward depending on what goes on here.

The reason I expect this to case a flamewar is the obvious censorship issue.
My position is simple: if there were picture groups that were moderated and
filtered to remove copyrighted material being illegally posted, I'd fight
like the devil to keep them available. Since copyright violations are
endemic in these groups and the users of the group have traditionally been
unwilling to self-police, it's my position that we have no choice but to
firewall ourselves from those groups to protect ourselves from being lumped
in with the masses if Playboy (or whoever) decides USENET is a nice little
plum to play with. Since we are protecting ourselves from legal liability by
distancing ourselves from definite legal violations and there is no way (I
know of) to filter out the 'bad' and allow the 'good' through, I don't see
that it's a censorship issue, but I'm sure others will disagree. Let's talk.

I'm confident that if I took this to Apple Legal for an opinion, once we
splashed cold water on their faces to wake them up it'd be a no-brainer how
they'd react. I'm not doing that because I'm worried that they may decided
to make the net even 'safer' than it has to be in a typical, conservative
lawyerly way. I'd rather solve it among ourselves in a way that everyone can
tolerate that isn't imposed by outside forces.

The reality is we can't pretend that this stuff doesn't exist, or that the
powers that be are going to ignore our violations as harmless or
insignificant. It does, and Playboy, at least, is defending it's copyright
vigorously. So we have to deal with these issues intelligently and
logically. My feeling is the only reasonalbe way to protect ourselves and
our company is to distance ourselves from the violations, but I'm open to
suggestions. 

Remember this: even ignoring the possible bad PR of Apple being caught in a
'on-line porn ring' lawsuit (there goes the K-12 market) and even ignoring
possible legal costs defending a suit or legal judgements to be paid (we
didn't need profit sharing, anyway), every corporate lawyer I've ever dealt
with on USENET has agreed on one thing: that it lives on the sufference of
not causing problems in the company. If a lawsuit ever does get filed over
USENET, there's a very strong possibility (make that probability) that the
first response would be to shut down access to usenet, or at best the vast
majority of the network. 

Is keeping the dirty pictures worth the risk? I don't think so. Therefore, I
am recommending to you folks, the readers, to understand what's going on and
not get TOO pissed when the pictures go away in a few weeks. It's something
I think we need to do for our own protection, as well as Apple's. 

What do you think? Let's talk.

-- 
            Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX)
                      Member, SFWA =+= Editor, OtherRealms
                chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ 

    I wanna drive the zamboni! I wanna drive the zamboni, yes I do.


-- 
            Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, ESD Support & Training (DAL/AUX)
                      Member, SFWA =+= Editor, OtherRealms
                chuq@apple.com | GEnie: MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ 

    I wanna drive the zamboni! I wanna drive the zamboni, yes I do.
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