Questions and answers: part something.

[markf]

So I thought I'd go ahead and take a stab at some of the questions everyone submitted. I think I'm as interested in reading what people have questions about as all of you are about seeing them answered. ;)

Comments

[drummer_in_drag]

boo

[pensive1]

It makes me slightly nervous that even LJ workers can read locked entries. Even with the reasoning of 'copyright violation potential', this seems to push or possibly cross the line of privacy

[burr86]

It's not as scary as it seems -- when anyone who has this ability looks at your journal, we still see what we're regularly allowed to see. (That is, I can't see people's friends-only posts just by looking at their journals). We have to specifically say "okay, we want to override the security setting for this particular page". When we do that, an internal note is made -- and we do review those notes regularly, to make sure that all uses of this ability are legitimate and that it's not being overused or misused.

[pensive1]

So it's not a random process, it's only something used when there is reason to believe that there has been a major copyright violation?

[inhumandecency]

Or formal allegations of abuse, or the other standard exceptions dealing with immediate and substantiated danger to someone's life.

[jiggery_pokery]

markf, thank you for your answers.

The reasoning behind my second question refers to lawsuits brought by the French government against Google and Yahoo! and the content they served to French people even from an American site. With this in mind, I am not convinced that LiveJournal itself falls under the law of the United States [...] We don't enforce rules set outside of the U.S. since they don't apply to LiveJournal itself is necessarily completely true in all jurisdictions. Additionally, the European Union Directive on Data Protection does, as I understand it, relate (or, at least, have provision for) the frequent case of EU citizens visitng non-EU sites.

I am not a lawyer and you folks have lawyers. If your lawyers have reviewed the cases and legislation, plus any other relevant cases and legislation that I am not familiar with, before concluding that there is nothing for LJ to learn from them, then I will take your word for it.

[rahaeli]

Oh yeah, we've got both internal and external people keeping an eye out on things, and we have a barrage of very, very sharp internet lawyers. (Er. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Lawyers who specialize in internet technology. And what is the proper collective noun for lawyers, anyway?) I'm not saying we're perfect, but I'm not at all worried.

[dzurlady]

And what is the proper collective noun for lawyers, anyway?
An expense of lawyers?

[spiralled]

We're fine with people posting fanfiction, and in most cases, it doesn't actually violate anyone's copyright. In the cases where it does, the copyright holder can file an official notice to have the content removed.

How do we ensure that out fic doesn't violate copyright?

[lauramcewan]

It's that wondrous gray area. George Lucas, for example, just doesn't want it shoved in his face where he would have to do something about it. He doesn't like it but it's not worth the effort to do anything. He's said, "I don't care what fans do as long as they're not making a lot of money from my stuff," to which Kevin Smith panicked slightly, standing behind him. George told him, "You're not making enough money," in regards to the Star Wars references Kevin uses in so many of his films.

Probably didn't answer your question. But I tried.

[museumfreak]

You know what might be nice, in reference to jiggery_pokery's question? Maybe there's some legal reason we can't do this, but why not a committment to announce ToS changes in news?