Why has the WT not tried to shut down this board?

by hamsterbait 69 Replies latest jw friends

  • GLTirebiter
    GLTirebiter
    To answer the OP the answer is the 1st amendement and "fair use laws" which are protected by our 2nd amendment. You're welcome, Canada and the rest of the world.

    Uhh, Simon is in Canada and this is a Canadian site.

  • RayPublisher
    RayPublisher

    The WTS may have "hackers", there is indirect evidence of it from a few different sources, albeit circumstancial. And yesterday my JWStruggle Gmail account notified me that multiple attempts were made to log into my account, from an IP address in...

    drumroll...

    .

    .

    .

    Upstate NY!

  • Chaserious
    Chaserious

    multiple attempts were made to log into my account

    If you have the interest and resources to pursue this, it is a felony in most states to log into someone's e-mail account without permission, and an attempted felony to attempt to do so. People have been prosecuted for this kind of thing.

    http://www.volokh.com/2010/12/27/man-prosecuted-for-reading-wifes-e-mail-without-her-authorization/

    http://communications-media.lawyers.com/privacy-law/Email-Hacking-Is-A-Serious-Crime.html

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    I don't know copyright law well. It is not a subject that most lawyers know. Wikipedia's guidelines have been my source of info. From what I read in wikipedia, massive copyright violations do occur here. Yet this site is here. Can someone who knows copyright law well ( a writer, journalist, editor, need not be a lawyer) can some add citations or a reference work.

    Since there are so many copies and pastes here that seem endless, it would be good if we had better knowledge of copyright law. I also wonder which jurisdiction applies.

    I am very aware of what I do not know. My sense from reading the explanation of others is that people have a newspaper sense of copyright law. It would be nice to reference a legitimate source.

    Maybe I will do it later. I am pressed for time now.

    If anything did happen, we would all be affected.

  • Chaserious
    Chaserious

    I can't imagine that anyone is going to write a paper and cite a bunch of scholarly articles just to post it here, but takedowns don't explicitly apply to non-U.S. hosts. However, often there are a number of links in the cyber chain between website and viewer, some of which might be U.S. based, and if the copyright holder sends out takedown notices to all of them, one of them might be willing to block access.

    It also was helpful to many sites, possibly this one included, that SOPA and PIPA did not pass and evidently died in committee. Those pieces of legislation were designed to allow enhanced enforcement against sites based outside of the U.S. that violate U.S. copyright law. Among other things, they would have required search engines not to find "offending" sites, and require U.S. ISPs to block access.

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    I see that you referenced legal blogs. Would posting Wikipedia's article on copyright law be an infringement? The jurisdictional/ conflict problems are interesting. Since Canada is the U.S. neighbor and so much trade exists between us, I find it hard to believe that mere physical location iin Canada would insulate anyone from liability. There must be a protocol or treaty. What are the differences between Canadian and U.S. law? We do live in a global village today. Laws must accomodate the facts.

    I also am not that interested to spend days researching it. Every website owners must have some easy reference. They can't all be paying copyright lawyers.

    I summarized the Napster decision for a museum here. The way they structured the company to shield liability was fascinating. Every location had a diffeent function so it was hard to figure out where their central office was. If I recall, there were off shore corporations, and diverse officers in far flung locations all around the globe.

    I just feel from a casual knowledge that the Internet is strewn with copyright problems and no one is enforcing it much.

  • 00DAD
    00DAD

    In an ironic way, the WTBTS needs apostates.

    Their whole worldview is framed as a battle. Satan of course is their invisible enemy, just as Jehovah and Jesus are their invisible God and his Son.

    That being said, and all JW rhetoric to the side, JWs are obsessed with visible things. They need a visible enemy to confirm their beliefs, whether it be a persecuting government or better yet us "apostates."

    What would their struggle look like without any opposers?

    What is the sound of one hand clapping?

  • 00DAD
    00DAD

    BOTR: Can someone who knows copyright law well ( a writer, journalist, editor, need not be a lawyer) can some add citations or a reference work.

    With pleasure! For any so interested, you can peruse this info from the US Copyright Office:

    Although laws differ in different countries, there has been a trend in the last couple of decades to have a more internationally unified set of laws concerning intellectual rights and their related copyrights.

    00DAD

  • Chaserious
    Chaserious

    I am not an IP expert. But as I understand it, a Wikipedia page would be copyrighted just like any other intellectual property. However, Wikipedia is a notable opponent of cyberproperty policing. They were very vocal against SOPA when it was proposed in the House. As a result of their philosophy, they explicitly developed a "Creative Commons Deed", available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License. It appears that this would grant you permission to copy and paste an entire Wikipedia page as long as you attribute the source properly.

    As I understand it, the DMCA only applies to US-based ISPs and search engines. It's an extrajudicial mechanism that prevents copyright holders from having to litigate every time they want to get rid of a violation. Basically, they notify the host of the "offending" material, and if that entity removes the material or resolves it quickly with the actual alleged violator, the host is insulated from liability. If a copyright holder really wants to block access to content hosted outside of the U.S., they can get an injunction against domestic ISPs to block traffic to the site under the DMCA. I imagine this is rarely done since it's probably a lot more expensive than just sending a takedown notice. The alleged violator can also be sued, but you run into the jurisdictional issues. I don't know if someone running a site accessed in the U.S. is amenable to jurisdiction in the U.S. But the real hammer that copyright holders want to use is the takedown mechanism. They don't want to litigate; it would be like trying to swat flies with a sledgehammer.

  • notjustyet
    notjustyet

    If the WTBTS COULD shut down these boards but do not, what would be the reason?

    I'm thinking that the ability to get an account here and post some CRAZY APOSATE rhetoric would almost play into the Apostate description that the WTBTS has told it's members to expect if you go on these sites.

    Some of these members come naturally and I beleive are not a "mole" but I think that it would not be too far fetched to "create" some members that ACT like they are mentally diseased. I mean this IS WAR right and if I were the WTBTS I would do what ever I could to scare away any members that might be lurking in these sites. If I were newly out and dropped into a site like this one and others and saw some of the things written my a few members I might stick my tail between my legs and run back into the Organizatio. Why would they NOT do this as they would be thinking that they would be helping their fellow brother. They create the phobias, why not fullfil them also.

    I say create a forum for "Thinking Out of the Box" threads that only seasoned members can have access to until the lurkers get a chance to see some validity of the post of some of the more balanced members.

    Just a thought,..

    NJY

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