[ih] there must be a corollary to Godwin's law about Sec 230, was ARPANET pioneer

[Joly MacFie]

I believe 'bookstore model' refers to Smith vs California 1959
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._California

joly

On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 7:54 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> >There are three models of distributor liability which we can call
> magazine, you're responsible for everything with minor exceptions,
> bookstore, you're responsible for what you know about or should
> reasonably know about, and Fedex, you're responsible for nothat thing.
> There are court cases for all of these.
>
> Quite interesting. I have to admit I've never heard much about the
> "bookstore model." What are some of the
> court cases about that?
>
> Personally, I believe the proposition that "every issue is brand new with
> the internet" is just wrong, and
> legal models that existed pre-internet were perfectly capable of handling
> it.
>
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2022 at 2:07 PM John Levine via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > >Steven Ehrbar wrote:
> > >> It's simple enough. You repeal Section 230.
> > >>
> > >> Under the court precedents prior to passage of the Communications
> > >> Decency Act, a system that moderated what users communicated (in the
> > >> specific court case, Prodigy) was legally liable for what the users
> > >> communicated, while one that didn't (in the specific court case,
> > >> CompuServe) wasn't. ...
> >
> > This is severely oversimplified and basically wrong.
> >
> > There are three models of distributor liability which we can call
> > magazine, you're responsible for everything with minor exceptions,
> > bookstore, you're responsible for what you know about or should
> > reasonably know about, and Fedex, you're responsible for nothing.
> > There are court cases for all of these.
> >
> > Compuserve v. Cubby which was in federal court, used the bookstore model.
> > Then Stratton-Oakmont vs. Prodigy, in NY state court, misread Compuserve
> > and assumed it was either publisher or Fedex so if you do anything
> > you're a publisher.  This was a mistake, not least because
> > the bad things said about Stratton-Oakmont turned out to be true.
> >
> > Section 230 said no, all online services are Fedex.  While this was
> > reasonable it was also not inevitable.  In the absence of Sec 230,
> > Compuserve is the precedent (outside of NY at least) and the bookstore
> > model fits a lot better than either of the other two.  Were 230 to
> > be repealed, the next few years would be pretty exciting particularly
> > due to all of the ignorant nonsense about what people imagine 230 to
> > say, e.g., that somehow without it online providers would be required
> > to publish everything anyone says which is absurd.
> >
> > In all likelihood we'd end up with the bookstore model, perhaps with
> > something like the notice and takedown process that OCILLA (part of
> > the DMCA) has for copyright violations.  It's far from perfect but
> > it wouldn't be the end of the world.
> >
> > On the other hand, most of the 230 "reform" bills introduced in recent
> > years would be awful, ill-specified carveouts that would only enrich
> > lawyers.  Look at SOPA/PIPA which was supposed to deter sex trafficking
> > and in fact had the opposite effect, just as its opponents predicted.
> >
> > R's,
> > John
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


-- 
--------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  +12185659365
--------------------------------------
-