tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (are we concerned about people posting illegal material?)

Anton Geraschenko comments on "are we concerned about people posting illegal material?" (66)

Anton Geraschenko — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:35:53 -0700

Scott is absolutely right. But the more I think about it, the more I think this just won't be an issue. Since MO doesn't host files or even images, it would be extremely difficult to actually make a post which is a copyright violation of any sort. The "best" you could do is just to start typing the contents of a book, but posts are limited to 30,000 characters, so it's hard to imagine somebody violating fair use even if they tried.

Scott Morrison comments on "are we concerned about people posting illegal material?" (60)

Scott Morrison — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:35:32 -0700

I'm pretty sure we should stand firm on this: linking is never a crime.

For that matter, even a post which is itself somehow a copyright violation, I'd be voting to wait for the DMCA notice, and after that attempt public shaming of the perpetrator. (The originator of the DMCA notice, that is :-)

Anton Geraschenko comments on "are we concerned about people posting illegal material?" (58)

Anton Geraschenko — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:17:49 -0700

I don't think we should worry about it. I don't think it's illegal to link to illegally downloadable material. If somebody makes a post which is itself a copyright violation, that would be another story.

Ben Webster comments on "are we concerned about people posting illegal material?" (56)

Ben Webster — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:03:35 -0700

A couple of posts have been flagged now because of concerns about copyright violations. Should we actually be concerned about people posting links to illegally downloadable material?