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Deven Desai

LiveJournal Deletes Groups It Deems Violates Its Policy

LiveJournal which claims to host more than 13 million journals has deleted several hundred accounts after Warriors for Innocence, an activist group that polices the Web for pedophilia sites, identified several journals as problems. The Web is a wonderful place. One can write what one wants, share it, and begin to find others with similar interests. This collective creation might be called The Generative Internet as Jonathan Zittrain puts it. But as Zittrain notes the more that the Internet becomes an open and free-flowing place with more people using it, the more the Internet may be become a place hemmed in because of concerns about security. In the present case, it seems some of the journals may indeed have been promoting pedophilia, but the article reports that many were fan sites and fiction sites. Thus, LiveJournal’s reaction to the activist group’s complaint seems to relate to what I see as the core issue of Zittrain’s piece: how open will the Internet be and should some level of regulation (private or public) address issues such as security and illegal activities?

One way to examine the issue is to ask what rights if any the creator of the content has against LiveJournal. In general, given that more and more of our creation is mediated by other parties, what rights does the creator have in the creation? At the very least, shouldn’t the creator have some ability to exert her intellectual property rights such that immediate destruction of the property by the mediating party is not allowed?

There are many ways to analyze these questions, but one obvious thought is that hey it’s a contract. Don’t like the terms? Go elsewhere. Perhaps that is the simplest solution. Indeed the article notes that some of the protestors have offered several “less-censorial alternatives” to LiveJournal. Still the terms of service approach should give pause. The material at issue is core intellectual property. And although many may question the extent of the control one should have under a given subset of the IP system, LiveJournal’s ability to destroy the material apparently without notice seems wild.

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Are You A Single Issue Terrorist?

CBS reports that the Alabama Department of Homeland Security had a Web site that listed groups it believed to be possible terrorists. The list included “hate groups, anti-government groups and anarchists” and it listed so-called “single issue extremists” such as:

* Environmentalists
* Anti-Genetics (those opposed to genetically-altered crops)
* Animal Rights
* Anti-Abortion
* Anti-Nuclear
* Anti-War
* Pro-Gay Right

CBS’s article quotes the site’s explanation: “Single issue extremists often focus on issues that are important to all of us. However, they have no problem crossing the line between legal protest and change and illegal acts, to include even murder, to succeed in their goals. In many communities, law enforcement officials feel that these groups offer the greatest organized threat to the community.”

At this point, it might seem this type of site is wild and better put to rest. It might have been an error in judgment that was quickly posted and fixed. The odd part is that the site–and its list of groups the Department thought fit the above description–has been up since 2004 and was inspired by a Pennsylvania list (I looked for that list but it seems to have been removed as well). Only because of some recent blog attention has the Alabama list been removed.

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Internet and Email Taxes

Apparently several internet taxes proposals are coming our way and possibly soon. According to CNET, bills to levy new or end bans on Internet related taxes are in play including one for an Internet Sales Tax (sponsored by Senator Enzi, Republican Wyoming) and several that address access tax bans. Senator John Sununu (Republican, New Hampshire) is predicting an email tax will follow; an idea that the article claims was floated in 1999 by the United Nations and met with enough criticism to stop it.

Whether or not Sununu is correct or is just hitting a topic that will rally folks against net taxes is unclear. Still one thing jumps out: states are thirsty for revenue. Ecommerce continues to grow. Sooner or later some sort of Internet sales tax will come. And if desperate (and allowed) states will levy net access taxes. So what are the possibilities for an Internet sales tax and/or access tax?
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