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| Really sorry, but here's why by Both SB and ES 02/11/2003, 11:02pm PST | ||||
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Zseni wrote:Senor Barborito wrote:Zseni wrote: [SPEAKING IN ADMIN CAPACITY NOW] There's a fine line between saying you can find something at the Underdogs/Kazaa (MSNBC & Wired talk about the stuff you can find at these places) and actually giving out URLs or God forbid actually making a hyperlink. Freespace 2 is open source, FYI, and the port of Freespace 1 copyrighted *content* (the content on the CDs is not public domain, just the source code to the binary) linked by one person appears to be a fan remake of similar content rather than a rip from what I can see, so it is, AFAIK, legal. If anyone knows I'm wrong, speaking up would be appreciated (subcom are you out there?) And I realize I'm not hosting it, Zseni, but Napster wasn't hosting their files either. Just because the link exchange between private hosts works through http instead of Napster's proprietary and dedicated protocol doesn't mean anything to the lawyers on the other end. I mean, I'll let this one go of course (unless the letters come and tell me to yank it), and I don't want to be an anal prick but when I say NOTHING ILLEGAL I have no choice but to mean that. Everybody in the world grabs MP3s, and until recently I've had tons I don't own - but I got rid of mine when I got rid of all my warez. I want this place, physical apartment and site, to be literally FBI-proof and for a very good reason I'll address in a second. What I saw of the Freespace 2 thread was just talking about how to get warez in a general sense which is a different thing altogether - MSNBC reports on how you can get reams of pirated software through Kazaa or The Underdogs (they've done stories on both). I know it sucks but grey-area infringements like this put me in a very bad position and while I don't want to be an ass I also don't want to be getting notices from anybody's lawyers. I know the site is small and probably escaping notice but you've got to realize that this makes us more of a target in some sense because we can't afford to defend ourselves in any capacity. When you host a site DELIBERATELY dedicated (at least in spirit) to pissing a lot of people off, you have to keep your nose so squeaky clean it shines. I'm sorry but that was sort of the price of OMM and I can't and won't change that here. I don't know if you're aware of what happens to this site per the terms of the DMCA if stuff like that goes on here, but it tends to involve the ISP closing the account IMMEDIATELY because they are held liable if they do not, plus jail terms of 5 years and fines of up to 250,000 for yours truly. The lawyers go after the small guys in order to scare the rest, and we definitely qualify as small guys at this point. Per our agreement with Blarg and Qwest we have accepted their policies, and I have to abide by and enforce those policies on anything I host. I'm really and truly sorry because I'm nothing if not a product of the 'information wants to be free' crowd, but this is not something I can do anything about short of establishing servers in some dumpy Eastern European republic. What you guys all need to do is setup some kind of BitTorrent thing or something similar with chat so you can coordinate completely seperate from the site, and just use the site as a dropbox for how to connect to it, without mentioning here the new content on it. This lets you trade to your heart's content, each violating your own ISP agreements as you will or won't, without jeapordizing the site in any way. Please, do me a favor and don't put me in this kind of position, OK? It really, really sucks for me to be in and I fucking hate to play this role.[/Admin] Senor Barborito Written, Entropy Stew Approved. |
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FREE SCOTT WALKER by 02/11/2003, 7:50pm PST  Is this legal? by 02/11/2003, 7:55pm PST At least as legal as bootlegging Freespace 2 or whatever. (nt) by 02/11/2003, 9:00pm PST Really sorry, but here's why by 02/11/2003, 11:02pm PST Re: FREE SCOTT WALKER by 02/12/2003, 9:02am PST I prefer "The Entertainer" (nt) NT by 02/12/2003, 10:00am PST |
