Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
A judge can make whatever ruling he likes. The question is exactly how RapidShare is expected to do this.
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Yes. With extra problems, even if they decide on a[n insanely time-consuming] "review all content before posting" policy.
Assume, for a moment, that they review all content.
They get a collection of ebooks.
It includes:
Gone with the Wind
Little House on the Prarie
The Tarzan series
Zigzags of Treachery, by Hammett
Peter Pan
Little Brother
Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom
Free Culture
Pride & Prejudice
On Basilisk Station
Elfquest graphic novel, vol 1 issue 1.
What should they do? GWTW and Little House are copyrighted in the US, but not in Canada. The Tarzan series are public domain in the US and Canada, but not places with Life+70 terms. The Hammett story is PD in the US only. Peter Pan is PD everywhere but the UK. Each of those books is PD somewhere; no place that's subject to the Berne conventions acknowledges all of them as PD.
Little Brother, Down and Out, and Free Culture are copyrighted--but released under CC licenses. (Are they required to check for CC licenses?)
Pride & Prejudice is PD, if it's the gutenberg version, but could be copyrighted if it's the BN annotated version with extra content. It's certainly copyrighted if it's Pride & Prejudice & Zombies but the name has been clipped.
On Basilisk Station and the Elfquest graphic novels are both available for free--on their publishers' websites. They're not labeled "freely available to distribute," but neither do the publishers seem concerned if someone else goes to the hassle of hosting the bandwidth for them.
Should they okay or forbid the upload? What if the uploader got permission from Baen and Warp Graphics to share those files (which is very plausible in both cases)? How would the uploader let Rapidshare know that these are shared-with-permission?
Oh, and say there's a book in there called "Dan Brown.PDF." Not "Da Vinci Code," and not "Lost Symbol." Are they required to open it and figure out what the content is? If it starts with a rant about the evils of Dan Brown as an author, are they required to keep reading to find out if his books are also included?
A ruling of "you must filter entries" is a roundabout way of saying "you may not host files; your business stops now."