Re: Dissident versus ASP
"Bernhard R. Link" <blink@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> writes:
> * Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org> [030317 17:31]:
>> Folks who are providing an ASP-style service generally are going to
>> have big web servers and lots of bandwidth anyway; I'm not convinced
>> that distribution of source would be a significant burden for them.
>
> Note the "generally". You are aware that you imply, that only such
> persons should have the possibility to do so?
I'm saying that in the most typical case, these folks will have big
servers & big pipes. I'm certainly not saying that it's ideal that
only folks with big servers and big pipes be able to provide ASP
services. Am I misunderstanding you? I'm simply trying to divide the
problem space up a bit. The other two scenarios described situations
where ASP-providers didn't have big servers or big pipes.
> What if some small individual wants to start a server doing decss.
> Not sitting in the USA another place under the jurisdiction of
> the large media-industry, there might be nothing doable against him.
> If he has to expose the source, he would thereby importing a
> circumvention device to the USA, thus eliminating any chance to
> visit the US without beeing convicted.
Fine, in this hypothetical if he's unable to provide the source to
folks in the US, the license would not allow him to provide the
service to folks in the US. Exactly analogous to someone trying to
distribute deCSS binaries. Exactly what hurdle he would have to place
in front of US users is up to him (and his lawyer).
> What I merely want to say by this, is that distribution is not
> only a technical burden, but more. (Running a slightly modified
> webserver that sends out his sourcecode in Germany may expose
> one to liability for example. With the current GPL one can look
> at the modifications some months later and test them a bit better
> to get rid of any problems with that)
I'm certainly not familiar with German law (I'm not even really
familiar with US law). But does this same liability apply if you make
changes to a CVS repository?
--
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
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