[tahoe-dev] The Liability Question.

[Ted Rolle Jr.]

Here's another tidbit to throw into the mish-mash.
It's from a retired IP lawyer friend of mine.

Well, IAAL, or at least IWAL since I'm now retired. I know little about this
subject matter, either the file system or the legal part. What I do know is
that from a legal standpoint it is a very complex and fractured topic. It is
very difficult to suggest a resource because there are so many potential
areas of concern, each of which is likely to involve an expert in a
different area from the others. For example, you mention that copyright
paper. A copyright or at least general IP lawyer who is familiar with that
area, especially online liability, which appears to be your concern, would
be the best source. But what about liability for loss of data - negligence
or breach of contract claims, for example. What about export laws for
encryption? What about complying with legal orders like subpoenas or search
warrants? What is the host's legal duty to comply or civil or criminal
liability if it doesn't? What if the secure document contains criminal plans
or data like child porn or terrorist plots - does the host share liability
or some other responsibility? In general, though, these different concerns
involve different areas of expertise and different courts or agencies, some
civil, some criminal in nature. I know there was a fairly recent Supreme
Court case (within the last year or so, I think, but time flies these days
so I could be wrong) that absolved (computer) hosts from liability for
certain things done by users but I don't recall the details. I think it was
Google and involved users searching for child porn or maybe ways to do
something else criminal, like make a bomb or poison. That shouldn't be hard
to find by using search engines. If you can find the name of that case and
then use that as a search string you can probably find a lot of articles and
commentary on this somewhat related area. I no longer have access to
lawyer's research tools like a law library or Lexis or WestLaw. There are
free services now like Google Scholar but they really aren't as good. Still,
that's a tool you might want to use; it has both articles and a separate
search engine for legal opinions.

I don't know if this has been helpful, but it's probably the best I can do.
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