While I generally agree that private lists are private and that the
listowner controls, still, I think there may be some possible legal
pitfalls. I don't know if this is the best forum for discussing these
pitfalls, if it isn't let me know of a better one. Its certainly on-topic
for this list IMO.
I agree with Alan's comment that in the case presented yesterday, the
listowner may be at risk because the list is hosted on a state university
machine. In this case, are you the listowner, or is the university, or is
the state?
The issue of ownership may also come up in other places. For example, if
you run the list on your ISP, could it be considered to be your ISP's list?
I don't believe so, but what if you got into a conflict with your ISP over
the list and ended up in a court with a judge poorly acquainted with the
Internet? (maybe this is a red herring, but it doesn't seem far fetched at
all!)
Another possible problem (and one that may be relevant to the case
discussed yesterday) is the nature of the relationship between the
listowner and the subscribers.
Generally, the subscribers don't actually pay money for the right to join,
but they are contributing to the list (perhaps this is a form of payment?
They are giving the listowner stuff to publish - and magazines and
newspapers often have to pay for material to publish).
So perhaps there is a kind of implied contract between the listowner and
the list members. Your list rules are some of the terms of this contract.
The contract also has implied rules - one of which may be the right of the
list member to post to the list.
If you place a list member on 'ignore' you may be breaking this contract,
giving the list member grounds to sue you.
I should say two things about this. 1) I AM NOT A LAWYER. and 2) These are
merely musings about the issues involved. While I am leaning toward this
view of the listowner-listmember relationship, I'm not emotionally tied to
it, and I realize it could be completely wrong.
This is certainly a legalistic interpretation of the relationship. I'd be
interested in hearing other interpretations!
If I'm right, however, it would be wise for listowners to spell things out
in a welcome document, and try to keep the welcome document up-to-date with
all rules adopted.
Kent Larsen
>From Kent Larsen <klarsen@panix.com>, owner of Mormon-index, a weekly
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