Just a couple of comments here:

• I think the node should not have been removed. Auto-censorship is even worse than censorship, it means that the MPAA has succeed in scaring us and that effectively they are the law. I know merlyn has been burned by a big company going after him, but I don't think its appropriate to let this fact rule the site's policy. Plus IANAL but I don't think you risk much until you receive a C&D letter BTW, although Corion trick is neat I don't think it would protect the site in court. HTML encoding can hardly be described as a protection mechanism.
• As for the janitors, I completely agree with the name change. We should never act as editors but the temptation is there every time we touch a note, so yes, janitors is fine.
• And finally, as I raised the point about the janitors responsability, I don't know the US law, and the French law is pretty murky on the subject, but it seems to me that there is an important distinction between somebody who does not interfere with (or filter) the content that's published, like an ISP or a telco, and someone who does, like a publisher.
  vroom is somewhere in between, but the more he interferes with the content and the more he moves towards liability. Actually the best defense might be that he does not touch the content, completely handing over this task to (possibly non-US to avoid them being in trouble!) janitors. This looks dumb but it might legally be the best strategy to make it the official policy for the site. Not that I think that it would do any good to PM as a community mind you, but caving in to the mere shadow of a threat really bothers me.

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In reply to Re: Node 541 by mirod
in thread Node 541 by Corion

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