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Post by Alrik on Apr 15, 2006 13:06:16 GMT
Hello, everyone. According to a now published decision of a court after a lawsuit, internet forums are "especially dangerous facilities". Someone, who maintains such a "source of danger" has to take special precautions. The article about it in German here : www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/72026I'm speechless. This is the worst thing I've read for ages. Alrik. |
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Post by hector on Apr 15, 2006 14:02:08 GMT
Elliot, we're caught. Get rid of the WMDs NOW!
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Post by Shan on Apr 15, 2006 14:18:23 GMT
Could someone explain a little more about this? I don't read German and I didn't quiet understand the translation I got. Shan  |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 15, 2006 14:33:57 GMT
I don't read German either, so if anyone could find this in English I'd appreciate it That said - just from the title I'm pretty shocked. Time to break out the chem-suits, guys! And Hec - I shall place all the WMD in safe storage, I assure you! ;D |
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Post by Alrik on Apr 15, 2006 20:59:21 GMT
I just wrote kind of an explanation in another forum. Here it comes :
It goes basically down to that the court says that the maintainer of a board has to look after EVERY SINGLE entry in order to keep the forum clean from entries that are against the law.
The story is far more complex, however.
It begins with a program k.exe, which is a program you can download and install from the developer's site. The EULA says it will do things, and even some more, without explicitely saying which.
What it does now, is, to "record" searches by the user for internet domain names. It then senmds these search entries (the domain names) to the developer, and then he can grab them before anybody else does. Eventually, he will then sell them to a much higher price, because he actually knows (via the program) that someone was looking after explicitely that domain name.
This behavoiur might be allowed, but is - in the opinion of many users - extremely unpolite, up to kind of "scalping". Therefore in the forum of Heise, the publisher of the magazine c't I mentioned in the computer security thread, some members said that as kind of revenge against this highly unpolite or even scalping-like behaviour they would suggest to massively download the program k.exe from the developer's server to bring the server down to its knees and create massive (expensive) traffic.
The developer, used what's called an "Abmahnung" against Heise, the maintainers of their own forum. This Abmahnung (the LEO dictionary calls it a "dissuasion") means that Heise should delete these entries, or pay a lot of money as kind of a punishment. In contrary to american or engliosh law, I read somewhere, the money is kept by the lawyers. This is a great way of income for lawyers, and an easy way to gain money through dissuasions. There seem to be more & more of lawyers which use it, someone could get the impression.
The lawyer the developer gave the tast to put such a dissuasion against Heise is a lawyer who has become kind of infamous. He is known to be the "Geschäftsführer" of (at least, meaybe) one dialler company, and is closely connected to another. He, and a lawyer who works at the same "Kanzlei" are both infamous for dissuasions in the past. One of the most welcome examples is that for a small company no-one ever had heard about who had had the TM rights on the word "explorer" for a program that was probably never released into the public (at least I don't know any report of someone using it). This small company had the rights over the ord "explorer" and managed even to get Microsoft to pay them money for using that word.
In that particular lawsuit following after the denial of someone to pay the money, the lawer was defending the small company in the court. That is I think the case when he became most famous.
He was also probably in the company called "FTPWelt", where illegally software could be downloaded for a fraction of its original price. A lawsuit is going on against him about that.
Well, in the end, the court said that Heise should look after every single entra in their forums - but not Heise, but ALL forums ! - because forums are "especially dangerous facilities" and against these "sources of danger" there must be made special precaustions, in this sense (my translation). This is a thing maintainers simply cannot do in great forums, due to the sheer amount of entries. On the other hand, this is also kind of a "free allowance" for any lawyer to make dissuations against maintainers of forums (and through this way gain more money).
The court who had spoken this court decision has also become (in)famous in the past because of several of its court decisions that were in par FAR away from reality. It's as if the judge(s) didn't actually know a thing about computers and internet things.
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Post by Gray Lensman on Apr 15, 2006 23:30:20 GMT
Thanks for the details. Anyway... this sounds utterly ridiculous. Times like this, I start to think maybe Shakespeare had the right idea about lawyers... ;D |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 16, 2006 1:00:16 GMT
Completely impractical, and (I hope) totally unenforceable. Running a forum takes up enough of anyone's time, without having to read every single entry on the site in case it breaches - or MIGHT breach - some law in some country somewhere.
Dunno about you guys, but I'm not versed in every single law on the planet...
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Post by Glance A'Lot on Apr 17, 2006 21:47:21 GMT
Nobody does Elliot, but you know the law - not knowing is not an excuse for not abiding.
But - rest calm. This is one court decision, valid, if at all, only in Germany, and, as you mentioned, totally impractical (though enforceable by a court order to close a forum until everything is screened).
It would not only ruin private forums, but commercial forums also - or do you think Nintendo would spend the time and effort on its homepage forum, if this were enforced?
The issue of censoring has not even been addressed - wait for the first borderline entry that is deleted, and for someone making a point by suing for it to be published!
There already is a bunch of disclaimers on a lot of boards to the effect that the contents of any post does not reflect the opinion of the board owner.
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 17, 2006 21:59:58 GMT
Absolutely, Glance. If this idea become popular around the globe, it would kill every forum on the web. Fortunately, I doubt it will - all those commercial forums have owners who will scream blue murder |
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Post by Venom65437 on Apr 17, 2006 22:53:12 GMT
Eh, maybe E will be screwed after all.  |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 17, 2006 22:56:51 GMT
Ya never know, V. But I doubt I'll be losing any sleep |
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Post by fourleafclover on Apr 18, 2006 3:59:11 GMT
I hope this is just wishful thinking on the author's part.... I have no use for chat-rooms but I love forums!
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Post by Alrik on Apr 18, 2006 21:21:06 GMT
Well, the author reported an actual court decision.
I can only hope this is wishful thinking of the judge(s) ...
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Buffy
Chaosite
Posts: 786
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Post by Buffy on Apr 20, 2006 10:20:44 GMT
In that case, I duelly hope that my assasination plans of the evil (dictator) president Bush and dear lad lapdog Tony Blair goes to plan. In fact, thanks Elliot for letting me plan the whole thing with YOU, and also getting me the explosives I need.  Much appreciated |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Apr 20, 2006 12:17:52 GMT
ROFL! Errr... Any time, my Princess... **Gulp!** ;D
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Post by hector on Apr 21, 2006 1:17:37 GMT
In fact, thanks Elliot for letting me plan the whole thing with YOU, and also getting me the explosives I need. That sounds less as a plot and more like a night of sweaty, animal love. |
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Post by Alrik on Apr 21, 2006 21:56:18 GMT
LOL |
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