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CSTB report on rights and responsibilities
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 10:57:14 -0500
The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) is pleased to announce the availability of a new report entitled _Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities_. Given increasing public interest and concern over the behavior of people on electronic networks, the report seeks to illuminate, to question, and to articulate difficult issues that arise in this context, and thus to help to lay a foundation for a more informed public debate and discussion of the rights and responsibilities of those who operate in this domain. The report is based on a workshop and a public forum involving technologists, lawyers, policy analysts, network service providers, and network operators in the exploration of several hypothetical but plausible scenarios in four areas (free speech, electronic vandalism, intellectual property interests, and privacy). The report illustrates how disagreements in these areas are rooted in value judgments; for example, the extent to which continuity with past precedents is desirable. Lawyers and policy-makers often argue that rights and responsibilities in a new domain inherently derive from existing rules, the report says. By contrast, technologists with extensive network experience often assert that with a new medium and a new form of human expression should also come new rules of social intercourse. The report notes that these four areas have always been inherently contentious, but over time certain compromises and understandings have evolved that guide what people do when communicating via traditional media such as print, telephone, radio, and television. Today the proliferation of networking technology threatens this state of understanding because it changes the environment in which previous compromises were achieved, leading to a re-examination of the same fundamental issues. The report is available from the National Academy Press for $25.00 (prepaid) plus $4.00 shipping for the first copy and $.50 shipping for each additional copy; tel. (202) 334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. It will also be available soon on the WorldWide Web at http://www.nas.edu; via Gopher at gopher.nas.edu; and via FTP at ftp.nas.edu. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, non-profit institution that provides independent advice on science and technology issues under a congressional charter. CSTB addresses national scientific and policy issues in computing science, telecommunications, and computer technology and their applications.
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- CSTB report on rights and responsibilities David Farber (Dec 09)