Fast Talk

This is turning into an age-old debate, that's if you call the days of the illegal Napster old. But lately, the conversation is moving away from the RIAA and music industry at large vs the consumer, to porn. In New York, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, got Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint Nextel to completely ban websites that host child pornography.(http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9548789) And in Britain, "Virgin Media, a UK ISP, has announced that they will be taking steps to curb illegal downloads amongst its user base." (http://www.pcformat.co.za/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=595) . Should entire sites, say a forum or community be blocked from an entire ISP's base, if just one person has posted something illegal there? The question is just the surface and doesn't get into a lot of other issues about: 1)where the blame should lie, and 2)censorship.

No. The ISP should not be held responsible. This is similar to a ridiculous law that states the parent is entirely responsible for the actions of the child until 18 years of age. No parent is with their kid that much to watch everything they do. You have to be willing to trust the kid. Just as ISP's are not our watchdogs. There is an understood trust, and if you break that trust you must be willing to accept the consequences.

I'm with the ISPs on this one. An ISP can host thousands or millions of web pages for its customers. The ISP may create its own contact to attract subscribers, but they can't control what users post or add to the forum. We like the internet for the way it lets us exchange ideas and information. Yes, there is pernicious and awful stuff on the internet, but once you start censoring this, where does it end? Should there be an internet-wide mandate? Does every ISP have to agree to eliminate specific content.

I guess I'm a web libertarian, or webertarian for short.

It's really tough on an ISP to be held liable for every single piece of content that's posted by users. What makes sense is for ISPs to be held liable if, after the illegal content is pointed out, they still do not take it down.
For serious issues, like child porn for instance, it makes sense for the govt to have the ISPs on their side, rather than treating them as the enemy. The recent deal with Time Warner, Verizon and Sprint is a good example of this.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10515681

sure, like holding gun companies responsible for violent crimes, alcohol companies for drink driving etc

ISPs are not their users' parents. ISPs are not responsible for what their users post. If you see something posted that is illegal, you have the option to turn it in to the appropriate agency or authorities. It is unrealistic to expect someone else to clean up the world for you. We are each part of the solution or part of the problem..

yes, it's quite fair to do that.

just like any other traditional business, can you allow a supermarket to allow its client to sell drug?

If the ISP ever monitors, edits, or purposefully affects in any way the content, then it acts as a publisher, and therefore can be held responsible.
If the ISP never monitors, edits, or purposefully affects in any way the content, then it is only a distributor, and not liable. The closest laws that can and are being applied are laws regarding publishing

See these links about our super hero trio:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2008/06/13/hulk/

ben Koshkin, Superman, and Batman was a great superhero trio but this is better! Movies based on comic books are supposed to be the stuff of fantasy. But is it too much to ask for a little believability? Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" -- conceived as a do-over after Ang Lee's cerebral 2003 "Hulk" proved to be such a disappointment to fans of the Marvel comic series -- is so fattened up with special effects that it seems to be insulating itself against audience disapproval. But that's not the same as teasing moviegoers, or delighting them, or sending them home with the sense that they're leaving with more than they came in with. "The Incredible Hulk" is an extravagant, booming picture, and Leterrier has taken great care to deliver one particular element that Lee's picture skimped on: He gives us plenty of opportunities to watch an angry, musclebound green giant smash stuff up. But Leterrier's Hulk -- like Lee's -- isn't a real-life bodybuilder in tiny, tattered pants, à la Lou Ferrigno, who starred in the popular television show of the late '70s and early '80s. He's a CGI creation whose body is a rolling landscape of bulbous muscles and throbbing veins, attached to a face that tells us nothing: Leterrier and his team of CGI elves have worked hard to make the Hulk look "real." They just haven't bothered to make him seem human.

I'm with the ISPs on this one. An ISP can host thousands or millions of web pages for its customers. The ISP may create its own contact to attract subscribers, but they can't control what users post or add to the forum. We like the internet for the way it lets us exchange ideas and information. Yes, there is pernicious and awful stuff on the internet, but once you start censoring this, where does it end? Should there be an internet-wide mandate? Does every ISP have to agree to eliminate specific content.

I guess I'm a web libertarian, or webertarian for short.