Steffi Graf Wins Case Vs. Microsoft 461
scaramush writes: "The AP is reporting that Steffi Graf has won her lawsuit against Microsoft for hosting nude doctored photos of her. Although Microsoft had removed the images when they appeared in June, MS declined to sign a formal agreement that they would not appear again. This is the second loss for MS in this case. Scary precedent."
Someone is missing the point here ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why this case? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to flog the dead horse, but it's more evidence of ways in which the private sector is quite happy to cramp civil liberties for its own purposes, using civil law.
One case MS should have one... (Score:3, Insightful)
Once compaines are afraid to let communities post pics, its not that far to stop posting of comments as well (its a bit of a slippery slope I know). I'm all for the open expression of opinion and beliefs, and I do believe that once contacted, the webmaster/admin should remove the pics, but they shouldn't be fine because the pics were there.
Conflicting Slashdot Views? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that brings up the interesting case of conflicting
Bottom line: scary precedent.
Hargun
what do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not the pirates fault, it's Napster's
Its not the poster's fault, it's the ISP's
noboby is guilty of anything, its the tool's fault... doesnt that make everyone feel better about themselves?
Re:"Scary Precedent"? Um, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
As others have pointed out, the scary part is that an ISP (in this case, Microsoft) is being held liable for material posted by its users.
The precedent part is somewhat less relevant as the German legal system does not rely on precedent the same way as the US or British systems do.
-Isaac
Re:"Scary Precedent"? Um, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
this precedent, should scare you...
Why this is a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
So anyway, this is good because it's not a mom and pop ISP. This is someone who can afford to press a point, if it's worth it to them. Thus it opens the potential for a real debate on these issues. If it were an easily-trampled minnow, that wouldn't happen.
In this case, be happy it's Microsoft. Your enemy's enemy and all that...
Point taken (Score:5, Insightful)
That loud SLAPPing sound in the background is getting closer.
Set back in Germany... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually a court case will come up in some major venue (the US, or a major eurpoean country I'd guess) that will be promptly ignored by the party involved because they don't operate under that country's jurisdiction. Then who knows what will happen.
Re:The burden of 0wnership (Score:5, Insightful)
In their old terms of use they claimed ownership of all contend they were hosting for you. So it became their property, and they were possibly making money of it.
If this is true, then this court case is absolutely on the money. We should give our German friends the benefit of the doubt.
MS can't have it both ways. I assume they demanded ownership of the content so that they could remove content they did not want posted - like anti-MS rants etc. However, when they were held responsible for the "property" they demanded, they tried to claim it was the website "owner's" responsibility.
This is not a frightening precedent at all, and it doesn't apply to any ISP with normal terms of service. MS just got exactly what it deserved.
I repeat - SHOULD NOT APPLY TO THE REST OF THE NET. Move along. Nothing to see here.
microsoft was bitten by own eula (Score:5, Insightful)
it happens that in this eula there was a part that said something along the lines of "all content postet/written goes over into microsofts ownership".
so when the pics were postet microsoft got ownership and so microsoft was sued because hosting said pictures that they claimed ownership for through their eula.
the eula was changed shortly after.
so there.. read it up before coming up with german/nazi like acusations.
Re:Conflicting Slashdot Views? (Score:3, Insightful)
Being a large group of individuals, it leaves those of us that are issue oriented being ticked off at the German court. It still leaves us with plenty of issues to be ticked off at MS about. Some of us even hate anti-trust so we do not fault MS for those violations, but do draw the line at some of their other business practices.
Now, for those that are not issue oriented, it *should* leave them happy that their big monster M$ was defeated.
This leaves the hypocrites, who can choose whatever side they wish.
See? Plenty of fences to sit around on
Re:what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that there are parallel's to the Napster case, but I believe that this case is actually slightly worse (and, depending on your perspective, on the opposite side of right vs. wrong).
With Napster, they created a service that was intended, from day 1, for heavy trafficking in copyrighted material. From what I understand, Napster went as far as to advertise the prevalence of popular artists on their service. Such knowledge is a key part of charging them with indirect copyright infringement (either contributory or vicarious -- I'm not up to date on the details).
With Microsoft, on the other hand, they apparently had a service that was no different from your standard message board with image attachments turned on. While there's no mention in the article of the theme of the board, there's nothing to imply an intent to profit off the indirect sharing of libelous material. That makes them (arguably) more innocent.
So even if you disagree with whether or not Napster's intent (or alleged intent if you disagree on the intent itself) pushes them into the guilt zone, it seems that Microsoft was standing in a less ambiguous position when they got nabbed. And that really worries me, simply because it implies that a court decision has crossed the invisible line (at least in my own mind) the stands between "Oh well." and "Uh oh."
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who would use a story like this to bash MS, now they are the zealots. It's an interesting experiment. Might make for a good time to make friends/foes.
Re:Darn.... (Score:2, Insightful)
if the home owner provides a large wall facing the public, with a sign which says "draw something" and several pieces of chalk. the home owner is then responsible for whatever graffiti is scribbled.
your example seems to be vandalism, itself a crime.
-rp
Re:Conflicting Slashdot Views? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you hate anti-trust, then the rest of the American capitalist system must piss you off pretty bad too. Anti-trust has a place in any non-laissez-faire capitalist system. If you want to create a pure capitalist system, that's one thing. But the US system doesn't even remotely resemble pure capitalism. Pure capitalism is probably unworkable due to national security issues alone.
At the risk of not fitting in ... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've read several news stories about MSN's TOS that gives them ownership of everything on customers' web sites. We've read the stories about their lifting images from customers' web sites and using them in ads. Microsoft's attitude all along has been that they own everything on their machines.
So it's not at all odd that they should be held legally responsible for images that they claim to own.
Lawyers have been pointing out for some time that the way out of this is for ISPs to simply declare that they are merely "carriers" and aren't responsible for the contents of customers' files or communications. A century of precendent with services like the phone system supports the idea that a common carrier can't be made to police the communications over its lines. The communications are the property of the customers, not the company.
Similarly, the corporations (mostly governmental) that maintain the streets and highways aren't responsible for the legality of cargo carried by users' vehicles.
It's likely that the real outcome of this will be to stop Microsoft's attempts to claim ownership of everything produced by their customers. If they persist in making such claims, they will be held liable for the contents of their files, and will be forced to hire staff to examine each and every file on every customer's web site. This will be so expensive that they'll have to either give up the ISP business or declare that they don't own customers' files.
What we want is a situation where we can all put whatever we want on our web sites, and the ISPs can't interfere. Legality should be strictly between a site's owner and the local governments. We want the ISPs to keep their noses out of our content.
Microsoft has just had its nose slapped.
Re:Fuck'em I don't care. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the rest of the world can't say the same thing. (ie Skylarow & The decss-kid)
But pointless borderline US-bashing aside, this sets a really crappy precendent. I live a lot closer to Germany than you, and since Germany is a major player in the EU this may spill over on me.
And if this becomes standard practice in the EU, there is a posibility it might eventually affect the US too.
And Germany is not the only country to set a crappy example. I regret to inform you that a major newspaper in my country (Sweden btw.) was recently convicted, and sentenced to pay fines for racist statments submitted to their public discussion forum.
In other words: A site like slashdot could concievably be shut down in parts of Europe!
How is that not scary?
Help us fight it now, or some day they'll come for you too... The US may be strong on free speech today, but there are no guarantees for the future.
I bet a lot of US corporations would like the right to SLAPP with impunity.
...and according to the postings on slashdot those are the ones that sets at least parts of the political agenda.
You have been warned.
Re:Its not the criminals fault, its the gun's (Score:5, Insightful)
This is more of a gray area than people realize. Certainly, it's the criminal's *fault*, but there is a logical argument to restrict the enabling technology if the result of its use is particularly destructive.
For instance, if you wanted to carry a nuclear weapon in a backpack around NYC, you could theoretically use the same argument: so long as the radioactive material is properly shielded, there's no harm done to anyone unless you detonate the bomb. However, the consequences of you using it are catastrophic, so it's illegal for you to possess such a device (at least I sure hope it is!).
Now, gun control seems like such a divided issue because people are divided over the severity of what happens when they are used. Many people do actually choose to use weapons in harmful ways, and yes, it is THEIR fault. However, since you can't easily stop someone from shooting you if they already have a gun in their hand, the idea of gun control is to eliminate the risk by not giving you the opportunity.
Certainly, there are lots of arguments on both sides, including one of feasibility... supposedly there are more guns in the U.S. than there are people, and you aren't going to just tell people to turn them in and expect them to do it. That wouldn't work.
Getting back on topic, this article is kind of the same: force the ISP to check all content before it goes online. This prevents a malicious user from posting malicious content, but seems to put blame on the ISP, when we know it should be put on the user him/herself. Again, we need to assess the risk of damage caused by a malicious user, and compare it with the cost to all the non-malicious users.
Personally, I'm pulling for the free speech side here, but I'm just a silly Canadian, so don't mind me.
Re:Someone is missing the point here ... (Score:4, Insightful)