list-server changes required by Communication Decency Act
It appears that President Clinton is going to sign the U.S. Telecom
bill containing the Communications Decency Act. 30 days after the bill
is signed, I am going to have to restrict the participation in the
mailing lists served via Pixar.com to adults only. This includes all of
the debian-* lists, and balloons@pixar.com . Nobody under 18 will be
allowed to subscribe or continue their subscription. I really, really
don't want to do this, but the alternative is to risk going to jail or
having my employer or myself face large fines. Currently, any member of
these lists can post material that could be held to be "obscene" (there
is no definition of "obscene" in the bill, so it could be anything
termed obscene by any court in any community), and I would be liable if
I knowingly allowed someone under 18 to read them. I will also require
list reflectors and archives of these lists to restrict access to adults
only.
If we can find other sites that are willing to take the legal risk, I
will be happy to transfer control of the mailing lists to those sites.
Please address any mail regarding this issue to Bruce@Pixar.com . Do
not copy it to the mailing lists.
Bruce Perens
Pixar
--
Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com> Pixar Animation Studios
"At least Pixar's second film doesn't have to be backward-compatible with
the first". - Steve Jobs
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