What laws does the SDMB pay heed to?

About This Message Board
1

Noticing all the threads that the mods lock due to concerns about ‘illegal activity’, I’m left wondering, which country’s law do the SDMB take in account?

Is it only the US?

For example, if I were to post questions about the drug Salvia Divinorum, would the thread be locked? Considering that Salvia is not scheduled in the US, meaning it’s legal to possess and sell. What about users from Holland or Portugal, posting questions about smoking marijuana or ingesting other drugs like cocaine or heroine?

I also notice that these thread lockups often seem to be knee-jerk reactions.

Take, for example, this p2p thread in GQ.

The reason the mod provided for closing the thread was : We do not permit threads about how to avoid getting caught when stealing music. And adding to that : It’s illegal, and that’s all you need to know. This thread is closed.

First, the only post that “shows how to avoid getting caught” is possibly this one.
But the information in that post is that publicly stated by the RIAA. It isn’t privileged and hard-to-find. Also, the offending post still exists after the thread is locked. So, if that post is deemed providing a circumventing technique, it’s still available for view for the lockup.

Second, what if hypothetically, a poster from a certain country were to post, where it was legal to share files over the internet. Would the mods still be justified in closing the thread?

2

Chicago

3

Indeed?

You have missed the entire point, stated repeatedly by the SDMB Staff. First, they do not close threads just because they fear they may encourage illegal activity - they also close them because they simply do not want those topics discussed on their message board. They aren’t saying it’s illegal to discuss it, just that because the action is or encourages or may involve illegal action, or for other reasons, they do not want it discussed.

And, as TubaDiva has had to say repeatedly, as providers and owners of intellectual property, they have a special concern about things like music copyright theft which is, shockingly, theft.

Second, many aspects of civil, as well as criminal law, are not so clear-cut that it’s a matter of “X encourages Y, thus it is illegal”. They have to err on the side of safety.

Third, they don’t have to just take US law into account, they have to take State law into account. This is something some people who live outside the US just don’t understand, even though it is explained to them repeatedly.

Fourth, why should the SDMB care if another country permits it or not? If France feels that child porn is OK with them, is France going to protect the Chicago Reader when the black kevlar-wearing troops come through the front door? They don’t care if someone from Holland wants to talk about how to make drugs or use drugs, they care about being sued when some dumbass dipshit loser here decides to try doing it at home, loses 50% of their brain, and has their parents suing the Chicago Reader for $5,000,000,000,000 for “crimes against humanity”.

Finally, there are about 1 billion other places where this information can be found. It’s not like the SDMB is placing a burden or undue restriciton on the fighting of ignorance. For information on music sharing and downloading cracks and hack, see Google.

4

No. ** Cecil **.

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The mod in that thread said it was illegal. It might not be illegal for all posters depending on their location.

Anyway, you just gave the answer I expected. It’s their board. Not much to discuss, then.

6

From the SDMB Registration Agreement (emphasis added):

Essentially U.S. law, but you are prohibited from posting anything that in the opinion of the board administration “fosters or promotes illegal activity.”

7

Well, I think there may be a misinterpretation, perhaps…? My reading of the quote was that the stealing of music (via copyright infringement or violation) was illegal. I don’t know of too many countries that don’t recognize copyright on music, and which have no penalties for violation of copyright. However - your drug example does give rise to a few countries where drug laws are radically different than the US, you are correct. In which case, however, I still think the points I listed will continue to apply.

8

Shouldn’t this be in “About This Message Board”?

9

Gravity, Conservation of Energy, Conservation of Mass, the usual.

10

Well, after you’re done crying your little eyes out, why not set your own board with any rule your little heart desires? vBulletin software isn’t that expensive, and I’m sure you could find even cheaper options.

11

I was curious (maybe ,annoyed), not angry. I’ve no qualms as such.

Your reply, OTOH, suggests annoyance at me even posing the question.

12

The thing is 90% of the time they’re just covering their butts. There are two main reasons why they have to:
One, The laws here in the US are, well, complex and talking about an illegal act can, at times, be illegal itself. Sure, there’s a chance you could beat the conviction on 1st Amedment grounds but that costs real money (something that I doubt they want to spend more of for something that makes no money).
Second, people teld to be idiots. When rebating copyright and mp3s there’s always the chance someone will post a link to mp3s. Linking to illegal stuff is another of those sticky legal issues.

In short they’re covering their butts because they have to. There might be times when the mods are a little quick with the locks but they don’t do it to be mean or for fun. They doit because they don’t want to boards shutdown.

13

Off to ATMB.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

14

Nah, just a healthy dose of condescension.

15

Some good points already mentioned.

Additionally, you have to understand that the Chicago Reader does not profit from this board, and that they are not willing to take on any additional burdens that may arise from the discussion of illegal activities around here.

This means that we, both members and mods, have to make sure that such a situation does not arise, in order to continue to enjoy our daily fix of the Straight Dope.

Yes, at times mods may close down threads that are not clearly discussing illegal activities. But we’d much rather do that than even remotely risk the bigger picture.

I appreciate that you understand our stand.

16

Ape Law. Yep, definitely Ape Law.

17

Una’s first post is just about exactly the SDMB’s official stand.

Lynn Bodoni
Administrator
For the Straight Dope

18

Knee-jerk? You have absolutely no idea how lengthy some of these discussions have been. Particularly the P2P question. I have archived more than a couple hundred e-mails from staff members on this topic alone. What you may see as knee-jerk because a thread might be quickly closed, is not that at all. It’s the effect of implementing a policy that has been previously determined through a staff discussion.

19

There’s been at least one case where the Mods warned off discussion in advance because of the UK’s libel laws. These laws are significantly stricter than in the US and there’s been at least one celebrated case where a USENET posting from abroad was found to be actionable. I think it’s fair to say that in the case where the Mods proactively, the “secret” was both mainly of interest to British Dopers and such that any of us who wanted to find out could do so by other means. British libel laws rather preclude any generalisations, but I’d expect that similar cases in future could be covered by a similar commonsensical warning.

20

The ‘Gutnick Decision’ raised some interesting questions here (Australia). A Melbourne businessman wanted to sue a US-based magazine, Barrons Online, for comments about him in an article published on its (also US-based) website, which he claimed defamed him.

The upshot was, the Australian High Court ruled that, even though the content was written in the US, the article could be considered to be published in Australia if it was downloaded here - thus allowing Mr Gutnick to bring action in the Australian courts. Like the UK, our libel laws are quite different to the United States, and the case may turn out quite differently when tried here in Victoria than it would in the US.

Link.