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Yes there are safe harbour provisions.
When it comes to civil issues, for example DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) issues, it is worth considering DMCA title 11 Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA USA Law) as the spirit of this piece of legislation is reflected in treaties with countries such as the UK and EU too. It refers to a "safe harbor" for online service providers (OSP's) liability provided they meet specific requirements. An exit node operator, assuming UK law was to abide by its treaty obligations would not be liable for holding (or transmitting unknowingly) infringing material but the statue makes clear that it must not be for financial gain. Under EU law (since in this respect US treaty law is overruled by national laws) in order for the copyright holder to successfully prosecute a criminal case or recover damages in a civil case, there must be proof of knowledge of the infringement and that the infringement was intended for commercial gain which is not the case for most exit operators.
Although not directly applicable, most EU laws have common traits and developments. UK law itself is surprisingly under developed in the area of computer copyright and the Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988 as amended is interesting in its antiquated terminology but the law itself is quite clear on what has to be proved in a prosecution case, so simple threats of action do not mean they have a case you must answer.
(some excepts above from a mail I sent ORG earlier this month)
- -T
On 19/10/2014 21:24, mikael ball wrote:
That is not a sound approach:
I think it is.
ii) in some legal systems this may mean you can be held responsible for the traffic that is routed via your node.
Example? In Germany you might (or might not) be responsible for traffic you relay. But not relaying part of the traffic doesn't change a thing, legally.
i remember reading somewhere [1] that if you run a server that carries mail and you don't choose where it goes or who it comes from, the server is protected from some DMCA complaints by the DMCA "safe harbor" terms (us code title 17 Chapter 5 ยง 512).
this might only apply in the US and it may not be entirely correct, but it does lay out that if you censor where the traffic goes to or comes from, you surrender some rights.
mikael ball
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