From: [c--w] at [cd.columbus.oh.us] (Jim Crowley)
Newsgroups: misc.legal.moderated
Subject: Legal issues of electronic publishing
Date: 15 Jun 1994 18:02:08 -0400



The Columbus Dispatch is currently involved in a test edition through the
Greater Columbus Free-Net, a consortium of phone, cable and public
entities. We are using hardware through sponsorship agreements with The
Ohio State University.

The question I told the board I would posit is:

Has anyone seen good documentation about how to legally protect yourself as
an electronic publisher?

I am an attorney, but the formal legal research in this arena is almost
nil. The library industry has done more, but i wanted the group
collectively to answer some of these questions, and provide any samples you
might be considering:

- Are your usership agreements predicated on any promise of people to
conform to good taste?
- Can you even try to define that, given the subjectiveness of "community
standards?"
- How does anyone who publishes in a situation where users can access
internet deal with the fact that some Usenet groups are unsuitable for
small children, etc.?
- If you are in a situation, as we are, where there are dozens of
information providers, do you deny access to groups such as the KKK, or is
the cure for "bad speech, even more speech?"
- Do you have a policy for disconnecting an information provider who
violates whatever your standards of decency might be?
- If you are in a situation where you have invited info from schools, and
the schools include religious ones, can you deny them the right to print
religious material (our free-net is supported by state, county and city
dollars as well as corporate sponsorship?
- Do any of you carry separate insurance against lawsuits?
Do you use national, local or in-house legal counsel, if any, when it comes
to electronic publishing?
- Has anyone done what we have presumed was necessary in past experiments:
negotiate secondary-use agreements with AP or other wire services?

Again, please answer me via electronic mail. I am sure there will be other
questions forthcoming

For starters:

Cubby Inc. v. Compuserve Inc. 776 F. Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991)
and
Anthony J. Sassan, "Cubby, Inc. v. Compuserve Inc.: Comparing Apples to
Oranges: The Need for New Media Classification," Software Law Journal 5
(1992).

-- 
[c--w] at [cd.columbus.oh.us] == Jim Crowley