Reporting Unfortunate Sex Blogs on WordPress.com
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raincoaster –
You cannot yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre and claim you are using free speech and so pornography and obscenity are not protected speech according to the Supreme Court of the United States:
“The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscenity
You’ll have a hard time in any United States court defending your belief that a cervix with a pencil it is protected speech under any circumstance.
Back to the specificity of the topic: All the WordPress.com severs are on American soil. If they move to Canada, as I predicted they will in my 2007 Predictions and Resolutions article, they may find a safer haven, but not a better one on moral grounds.
Remember, WordPress.com is an international publisher so “community standards” apply to all aspects of the United States and not a single locality.
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Final Thought:
Thank you to everyone who participated in this vigorous conversation. Dialogue like this is invaluable and important.
I especially appreciate those who take an opposite view to help fully argue all angles of merit. Devil’s Advocate is a hard and unenviable position to be played, but it must be fought for to be fair to all sides.
I fully support the idea of free speech and as a publisher and an author I would be false to argue otherwise.
As we all age and gain perspective on people and the law, we can become more and more sensitive to context and not overarching arguments. The Supreme Court of the United States fought hard over the idea of obscenity and concluded; we “can’t define it, but [we] know it when [we] see it.”
Today, I felt I saw something that deserved a closer look. There’s a time and a place for everything in a frame of understanding and our willful awareness of circumstance — and the glimmer of specific issues over general ideals — is what makes us all greater together and more wonderful in the whole of us.
Good night.
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boles, if it is relevant (and for whatever reason it appears to be) I am not in the United States. And the Supreme Court has ruled that Robert Mapplethorpe’s and Joel Peter Witkin’s art is protected speech; the examples you give would also be protected.
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boles: scroll down in that wikipedia article. it explains ‘common carrier’ as legally defined relating to telecommunications companies.
ISPs are largely immune from liability for third party content. The Good Samaritan provision of the Communications Decency Act established immunity from liability for third party content on grounds of libel or slander. The DMCA established that ISPs which comply with DMCA would not be liable for the copyright violations of third parties on their network.
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Adam —
As I read your link I interpret it to mean “without previous knowledge” of a Copyright infringement a “Common Carrier” may be immune from prosecution or legal action.
If, however, I inform an ISP/blog host that my content is being stolen and I prove the provenance of my pre-existing work and the ISP/blog host then refuses to remove the content on my behalf, then they become liable as a co-conspirator because they are willfully refusing to recognize and act upon the removal of my exclusive ownership of the work even though they’ve been given fair notice to remove the stolen content.
Even if an ISP/blog host writes in their TOS they are absolved of all publication responsibility that doesn’t mean they still cannot be put on the stand and crushed in the press as a meaty target for being made whole. Who has the deeper pockets for restitution? An ISP/blog host with a valuable brand and name or a fly-by-night Scraper/Spammer? The ISP/blog host may claim to be, in theory, right on the law, but it will cost them heaps of time and money to continue to defend that claim in court.
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We always act on DMCA issues.
If anyone has reason to believe their work is being copied here on wordpress.com, send an email in. You can expect a response AND action.
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I’m not going to read this thread because if I did, I would write a three hour post on the issue and I would have go write another chapter of Mission to Hell or something.
I will point out though that folks need to remember that what one’s persons values are may not mess up with other folks. Also remember that the internet is not just the USA. (or AOL) Different laws apply in different locations. That’s one of the reasons why I keep an law firm on retainer myself (outside of the country in fact so not to be affected by US leanings) and I’m sure Matt and crew have one on retainer as well.
Regards,
-drmike -
I am clearing hundreds of spam “deposits” every day from my blogs made by people they who apparently have sexual behaviours that depict mutilation and torture for the purpose of sexual gratification.
I have unexpectedly clicked into blogs that utterly offended my sensibilities. I am a member of the majority of bloggers, who do not blog on or depict images of mutilation and torture for the purpose of sexual gratification, and who do not want to be unexpectedly faced with this kind of content.
Do I expect that Automattic will be more inclined towards listening to bloggers like myself than those who clog the spam filters with unwanted and unsolicited material? YES!
What people write or the images they post in their blogs is not IMO the issue.
What people do within the privacy of their relationships is not IMO the issue.
Business people make ethical decisions and express them in policies every day in the USA and around the world. Intelligent and ethical business people listen to what the majority of their clientèle wants and act on the information.
Which blogs a webhost like Automattic chooses to promote and feature is their internal business. The policies either will reflect the ethical standards they wish to put forward, to be known by.
(1) If the blog host in question chooses to make it mandatory that all “adult” content blogs are labeled private and that failure to declare one’s blog properly can lead to suspension or deletion that is their business prerogative, and there is no law that can compel them to do otherwise.
(2) If the blog host in question chooses to make it mandatory that all “adult” content blogs will have their tags/categories from their tag system that is their business prerogative, and there is no law that can compel them to do otherwise.
(3) If the blog host in question chooses to make it mandatory that all “adult” content blogs shall not be considered for top blogs, top posts, and from growing posts consideration that is their prerogative and there is no law that can compel them to do otherwise.
(4) If the blog host in question chooses to make it mandatory that all “adult” content blogs shall not be available through the use of the “next blog” button that is their prerogative and there is no law that can compel them to do otherwise.
(5) If the blog host in question chooses to make it mandatory that all “adult” content blogs shall not be linked to usernames in the forum that is their prerogative and there is no law that can compel them to do otherwise.
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This – like every other thread that comes along and discusses “Freedom of speech” type issues – will continue to degenerate.
The OP has marked it as resolved so I am closing it.
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