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To state that the effort of attempting to protect the LUG as a whole from the current UK legal system by the simple measure of distancing editorial rights from the website (and group) to the author is both unfortunate and short-sighted as has been proved repeatedly in recent times with the cases with both twitter and facebook within the last six months. The only reasons that these organisations were themselves not liable in the cases where have been successfully prosecuted is the enforcement of their terms and conditions upon registration and the publication of the disclaimer prior to the inflammatory postings. If you think that digital publishing exempts you from having to publish responsibly and without assumption, you are mistaken. As has clearly been passed down in a series of crown and high court judgments within the last year. Even 'boilerplate legalese' is better than sticking our collective heads in the sand in this instance. The law, such it is at the moment is incredibly clear on this: Ignorance is no defense, and to do nothing would be worse than doing something badly as that would at least demonstrate intent. Again, just an opinion. Personally, I would not choose to call something that could legally protect the group and its individual members from the legal bottom feeders (read no-win, no-fee lawyers) for the sake of a bit of decent research pathetic. Furthermore, most contracts, wills and disclaimers, used commonly today could be described as boiler-plate in some way. Sorry if you find the debate offensive, but that does not negate the need for it. Fin. Sent from my BlackBerry® -----Original Message----- From: bad apple <ifindthatinteresting@xxxxxxxxx> Sender: list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:51:59 To: <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [LUG] disclaimer text On 13/01/13 23:21, Martijn Grooten wrote: > On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Edward Finlayson wrote: >> the recent state of criminal cases being prosecuted on the strength of twitter >> posts etc. > The cases I'm aware of involved a presumed terrorist threat and the > intrusion of someone's privacy. I think don't think people should have > been prosecuted for this (at all), but I doubt a disclaimer would have > made a difference here. (And, say, if you made a convincing terrorist > threat somewhere online, do you think a site's disclaimer should > prevent you from being prosecuted?) > > Again, if someone with more legal knowledge than I posses can convince > me that disclaimers are necessary, I'm fine with that. (Because - > disclaimer - IANAL.) But just putting some disclaimer-y stuff > somewhere, because the Internet can get you into trouble, isn't going > to make a difference. > > Martijn. > I 100% agree with this and argued for this last time around. The sort of mouth breathing inbred who would sue over something like this isn't going to be remotely put off by some copy/paste boilerplate legalese. None of us our lawyers - as far as I know - and therefore all of this is a waste of time anyway: we're simply incapable of handling this in any legally water-tight fashion. Forget the disclaimer, it's pathetic. Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq