(This contains opinions of my own, so I'm not speaking here as
moderator.)
Sweden is considering a law regulating some uses of the Internet and
BBSes. While this recommendation has been represented as somehow
related to the U.S.'s Communications Decency Act in email circulating
around the Net, I see nothing related to censorship of "indecency" in
it. (And it would be quite a surprise if there was, to those of us
who consider the Swedes more tolerant than Americans in this area!)
Rather, I think the proposed bill is concerned with the quite
reasonable goal of making sure that the Net is not used for activities
that are already prohibited in some way, such as libel and the
distribution of copyrighted materials.
See for yourself at:
http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/SOU-1996-40-eng.html
But I do have some worry about the proposed law's attempt to make
computer and BBS operators enforce laws. For instance, the operator
is responsible for stopping transmission if a violation of copyright
is "obvious." How this can be done technically, or enforced legally,
is by no means "obvious" to me. Once again, I believe (as with laws
in the U.S. regarding indecency and copyright) we see government
officials making an implicit assumption that the Internet should be a
centralized service with content controlled by a few owners--and
making laws that try to produce this kind of network.
Andy
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/
CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore
Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use.
~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
