FC: Norwegian ISP yanks Usenet newsgroups after child porn ruling

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: wed, 12 jun 2002 01:41:21 +0200
To: declan () well com
From: mikael pawlo <mikael () pawlo com>
Subject: newsgroups shut down in norway

Declan,
Here are some news on a recent court ruling on newsgroup liability in
Norway that might interest you and other Politech readers.

Digi.no reports that the district court of Oslo, Norway has ruled that the
Scandinavian Internet Service Provider and telecom company Tele2 is liable
for distributing pictures containing child pornography, violent pornography
and forced pornography (all banned in Norway) in its newsgroups. Tele2 was
fined to pay NOK 500,000, which is a substantial fine in Scandinavian
courts (around USD 64,000).

As a consequence of the verdict, Telenor, the main competitor of Tele2,
immediately shut downall newsgroups that may contain pictures.

The Norweigan authority Okokrim, which is a law enforcement agency for
white collar crimes, is reported to look upon the Telenor reaction as an
over-reaction. However, Okokrim consider the ruling against Tele2 just.

The Norweigan Tele2 CEO Markus Takte regards the ruling as absurd and will
appeal. Takte states that one can not force the distributor to carry the
responsibilites of a publisher.

The ruling has also caused quite a stir in Sweden, while Tele2 is a Swedish
company. I think that the ruling - if not changed upon appeal - may
eventually create a situation where the ISP:s are forced to lessen
interactivity in the networks and apply a cable operator business model to
their systems, not much unlike AOL. Hence, the Internet would run a risk of
beeing split up into small islands with decreased interactivity between the
networks. The latter effect is commonly referred to as 'splinternet'.

Related links:

Report the case by Digi.no (in Norweigan):
http://www.digi.no/dtno.nsf/pub/md20020606150502_kvi_79098191

Tele2:
http://www.tele2.se/

Currency Converter:
http://www.xe.net/ucc/

Telenor:
http://www.telenor.no/

Digi.no on the Telenor shutdown (still Norweigan):
http://www.digi.no/dtno.nsf/pub/md20020606164817_kvi_61940032

Okokrim web site:
http://www.okokrim.no/

Digi.no on Okokrim's reaction to the shutdown (Norweigan):
http://www.digi.no/dtno.nsf/pub/md20020606174835_okv_85883726

Splinternet theory:
http://www.law.usm.maine.edu/mlta/works/01/splinter.htm


Regards

Mikael Pawlo

_________________________________________________________________________

  ICQ:35638414                              mailto:mikael () pawlo com
  +46-704-215825                              http://www.pawlo.com/




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