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Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 14:53:14 +0800 (WST)
From: Adrian Chadd <adrian@obiwan.psinet.net.au>
To: Joe Mays - freebsd-isp <fbsd-isp@launchpad.win.net>
cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: News...
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> 
> You keep talking about the cost of defending yourself against
> prosecution.  Can you offer me an estimate of the amount of
> dollars spent by ISP's to defend themselves against prosecution for
> carrying binary groups thus far?  In my experience, the amount of
> dollars we have spent on legal defense for carrying whatever comes
> down the usenet pipe is approximately $0.
>

*so* far.

If you've been listening to the arguement you'll know that there ARE
groups out there who are starting to put pressure on ISPs carrying
binary groups, pornography in particular.

So right now its $0, but the risk is there that it WILL start costing to
keep the groups legally.


> This aspect of your argument seems specious to me.

You don't seem to be thinking ahead.

Personally I couldn't care less about binary newsgroups. If someone wanted
to post people porn, they should setup a web or ftp site. Proxy caches
(which any decent ISP enforces for their own sake) would cache it, the
ISPs which users then connect to to view this crap on the net aren't
liable. (In my interpretation anyway, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Same for email I guess, but then binary attachments in email are usually a
one-to-one thing, and again AFAIK we aren't responsible.

Adrian.