A legal fund - that is a fascinating idea! I must have missed the
original discussion of a union and such. You won't get much contribution
unless you have an organized fund thing to send it to, but I would make a
small contribution if this gets going.
Has this case gone to court? Or is this fund an anticipation of that?
What precedents are there for such things? What other groups have a
shared legal fund? Doctors have malpractice insurance. What other
groups have some group protection? Could Lsoft provide this, perhaps by
building in a fee into their basic charges for listserv? (I am sure Eric
is going to have an opinion on that one!). I am serious, though. The
questions in the more general case of online services being responsible
for content (like the Prodigy case) make list owners nervous. Perhaps an
industry-wide group to protect list owners would be what is needed - a
partnership between Lsoft, Majordomo, and so forth? They could also
provide expert advise on what is copyright and how to handle it, and what
is a disclaimer and where you need them, and so forth.
There may be enough lawyers on the net that this could be setup somehow
as a non-profit organization? Maybe Prodigy and the other services could
help fund it also. But who would organize it?
Kevin
/^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SIGNATURE BLOCK ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\
| NAMES: Kevin J. Sinclair = [log in to unmask]; also [log in to unmask] |
| TIMEZ: USA Pacific Time Zone; 7 hours earlier than GMT (8 in the winter) |
| URL'S: http://rdz.stjohns.edu/kidopedia/, http://www.computer.com/home |
| LISTS: List Owner for the following (Listserv) Internet mailing lists: |
| 1) [log in to unmask]: WWW Encyclopedia, made by children! |
| More information: send an email to [log in to unmask] |
| 2) [log in to unmask]: Grateful Med - medical search software |
| More information: send an email to [log in to unmask] |
\_________________________________________________________________________/
On Fri, 30 Jun 1995, Winship wrote:
> Fellow Listowners,
>
> You may recall that a while ago I suggested a listowners' union
> and a fund for legal expenses for those like Anita Cohen-Williams faced
> with determined net.kooks (you coined it Anita, I like it) bent on
> destruction. There was no response that I saw.
>
> Ok, we'll drop the union stuff and a general fund, for now.
>
> Anyone in for starting a legal expenses fund for Anita? I'll start with
> $1,000 (my wife will kill me if she ever finds out). What we need is a
> trust to handle the details, you know, like those you see on tv, send
> your money for these people to XYZ. Anyone know how to get one of those
> started (can't be too difficult, they get these benefit things set up
> in time for the early evening news)?
>
> Come on people, we've got to do something about this, and this is as good
> a place to start as any. If Anita can't win her case we are all in
> potential big trouble. If she wins we have a rock to stand on.
>
> So, any takers, can we get this going? Douglas
>
> Douglas Winship Hays County, Texas [log in to unmask]
> Secondary AUTOCAT Listowner
> MEDLAB-L
>
|
