Just been investigating the position of web site owners vis-a-vis copyright in the Phorm model, and came across this from outlaw.com
The UK's E-commerce Regulations. An interesting read on the whole but the part on caching was particularly interesting. I don't know if any of this has been superseded since the article was last updated.
The part on caching wrt ISPs includes this little gem
Quote:
Further, the service provider must not modify the information and must comply with all access conditions imposed with regard to the site. This in itself means that it may be difficult to fall within this exception.
For example, many website copyright notices provide that the information may not be stored in an electronic retrieval system – which, on the face of it, precludes being cached by ISPs for the provision of a more efficient service. Obviously, whilst it will not be in most websites' interests to prevent ISPs from doing this, it nonetheless makes it difficult for the ISP to have complied with the strict obligations under the regulation. For an example of how to address this, see OUT-LAW's copyright notice.
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The date of last update is stated as December 2006 which means that BT must surely have fallen foul of this [interpretation] during their 2006 trials where they did in fact change the content. This also means (if I read it correctly) that they must comply with sites which state words to the effect of "I don't want to be analysed."
Also of interest
Quote:
No obligation to monitor
The E-commerce Directive states that Member States must not impose a general obligation on service providers to monitor the information which they transmit or store. It is normally accepted that if you do monitor the content on your servers then you are at greater risk as you will be treated as a publisher of that information.
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Mere conduit protection is gone. I'd be interested to know if anyone was "phormed" in the trials whilst accessing torrent sites for copyright material. If so then BT must have had enough strikes to keep them off the net for many a year.
As the saying goes, "I am not a lawyer", but the people at outlaw.com are. My interpretation my be wrong, judge for yourselves.
Simon