From: bfh@b15.b15.ingr.com (Burgess Howell)
Subject: Re: ATTENTION: All people who received a crack for Alchemy!!!
Organization: Intergraph, Huntsville AL
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 19:16:54 GMT

In <1992Apr4.041843.20449@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:

>+------------------------------------------------------------+
>!  Most if not all of the discussion on this issue would     !
>!  be much better at home in misc.legal.computing.  I have   !
>!  directed the followups there.  I suggest doing likewise.  !
>+------------------------------------------------------------+

>In article <1992Apr3.161146.13397@cbfsb.cb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes:

>>By the way, we are not necessarily talking about crime.  A university
>>does not have legal authority to prosecute crime.   It does have
>>authority to deny its resources to anyone who might create a civil
>>liability for the university by using them.  By denying its resources
>>to the student in question, after the fact, the university might have
>>been trying to show that it was not responsible for the crack.  I hope
>>that worked, as universities in general are not rolling in surplus
>>money these days.


So, to follow this to its logical conclusion, the university is not
interested in the free and unencumbered distribution of constitutionally
protected information -- or the protection of the rights of one of its
students who dared to exercise his rights.  Rather, it feels it is in
its best interest to censure the student and distance itself from
a civil suit in which it would have to admit that, when it comes right
down to it, it is not in the business of disseminating information -- 
it is in the business of counting beans.


>But to go on.  One related but a general thought (which does not
>belong to cbip.d mind you) that arises from looking at this
>discussion is the strong impression it gives of a community being
>very interested in litigation issues.  A parallel issue in this, and
>perhaps even more in other similar discussions recurring on the
>UseNet news is the, to me a strange stress on the US first amendment
>interpreted as giving the right to anyone to have anything
>distributed without regard who owns the facilities used.   

I think two points should be made here.  First, in the US, the law says
that if an act is not specifically prohibited, it is allowed (pretty scary,
huh?).  The transfer of information is still (with very few exeptions)
legal in this country.  Next, the information was distributed by an
electronic mail service provided by the university to the students.  One
must assume that the university knew the service would be utilized by
the students.  One must also assume that a university administration is
not so naive as to believe no controversial information would pass
through their mail system.  Ergo, if the university is truly interested in
removing itself from the possibility of civil suits, it should _not_ be
allowing those naughty students to talk to the rest of the world.

>For
>example when I refused to have a certain suspect package on our FTP
>archives (about a year ago) the (US) author complained to me with a
>straight face that I was depriving him of his lawful _right_ of
>distributing his shareware material. 

And you were completely within your rights, Timo.  An archive site is
not UseNet or e-mail.  It's YOUR disk space which you graciously make
available to people around the world (and we thank you for it).  Use it
as you please.

>...................................................................
>Prof. Timo Salmi
>Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.87.1
>School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
>Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun

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|Burgess F. Howell                    |                                |
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Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing