There's some precedent for newsgroup providers finding shelter in the DMCA's Safe Harbor. In 2000, author Harlan Ellison filed a lawsuit against Stephen Robertson, who allegedly posted a number of Ellison's works to alt.binaries.e-book. One of the codefendants was AOL, which provides Usenet access to its subscribers. AOL argued that it was not liable for infringement due to the Safe Harbor provision, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. One of the factors in the decision, however, was AOL's 14-day retention policy, which the court deemed was sufficient to qualify for the DMCA's "transitory communications" Safe Harbor protection. AOL later lost that protection, however, when it was discovered that the ISP went months without checking the infringement notification inbox.

This agrees with what I've said earlier about usenet providers being deemed a safe harbor.

Panellists at a trade forum levelled harsh criticism at the US, focusing on a burgeoning trade clash between the US and Europe over internet gaming.

The forum believes that the US could be liable for up to US$100 billion in trade concessions to European industries after placing illegal discriminatory trade restrictions on European gaming operators.

The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming.

Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments.

As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion.

Previously, US Tries To Regulate Internet Activity Despite Treaty

ThePirateBay has been digging through the enormous chunk of leaked email from MediaDefender, the sleazy enforcers used by the entertainment industry to fight P2P, and they've discovered evidence of illegal sabotage. So they're suing all the big movie and record [companies] in Sweden...

The Utah legislature has quietly passed a dangerous law allowing trademark owners to prevent their marks from being used as keywords to generate comparative ads. If this law takes effect, a company like Chevrolet couldn't purchase "sponsored link" space on the Google results page when a user types "Toyota" as part of a search query--at least if the latter term is registered in Utah as an "electronic registration mark."

Further, people need to stop thinking of Google as a newspaper, it isn't. Sure, while there is Google News, it's just an aggregate of news media. Sort of like a friend cutting out articles and giving them to you (and letting you search them). Think of Google as a sort of concierge when you're looking to purchase something since that's more applicable to this case. If you're staying at a hotel and ask for directions to the nearest AVIS but instead the hotel refers you to the local Enterprise, what's the big deal? And even if Enterprise were paying your hotel to make that recommendation, what would the harm be as long as it was disclosed (like all ads on Google are)?

Third, the notion that a searcher looking for information on, for instance, Dell computers, would not be interested in Compaq computers is absurd. Compaq isn't trying to pass itself off a Dell, nor its wares as Dell products. It is merely a "by the way, we make computers, too, you should come take a look." The term for this is an associative lookup and is nothing new.

Fourth, all of these local laws trying to regulate and police an international communications medium are just place stupid.

In 2003, the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda took a look at the thicket of U.S. laws governing gambling and decided that they violated the United States' free-trade obligations, as administered by the World Trade Organization. Antigua had a more than scholarly interest in this issue because, when offshore Internet gambling businesses were first being set up, the country decided to both welcome and strictly regulate them. Not liking what it saw in the U.S. law, Antigua initiated a WTO proceeding challenging the regulations.

Antigua's basic theory in its WTO complaint was simply that, if the United States allows any Internet gambling at all, it couldn't, in light of its WTO obligations, impose barriers to foreign companies seeking access to its market. It was a pretty straightforward free-trade argument. In response, the United States tried to take advantage of a "morals" defense in WTO proceedings that says, reasonably enough, that if you don't make a product in your country due to moral objections, you needn't open your market to foreign providers of that product.

...the WTO upheld Antigua's complaint and essentially ruled that while a "morals" defense could theoretically be made, the United States was in no position to actually make it, since it doesn't completely prohibit Internet gambling.

The WTO gave the United States a year to comply with its ruling by either changing its laws to fully ban online gambling or by allowing foreign access to the online-gambling market. That year ended last April, but rather than do anything to comply, the United States simply issued a statement to the effect that it had spent the year reviewing the matter and decided that it has been in compliance all along. Antigua is, unsurprisingly, challenging this response. A final decision from the WTO is expected early next year.

...

The obvious question is what Antigua can do with a victory at the WTO. Retaliatory tariffs plainly aren't particularly appealing for small country like Antigua, because they would certainly hurt more than they would help. But the plucky little island paradise does have some creative options at its disposal. If the United States remains recalcitrant, under the WTO rules, Antigua would potentially have the right to suspend its own compliance with the treaty that obligates it to respect the United States' intellectual-property laws.

First, I'm not a big fan of the WTO.

However, the fact that such a small country is fighting fire with fire by using it sort of makes me giggle a bit.

Congress doesn't understand the Internet, nor the global economy that it creates. This is going to backfire and in a very bad way. And the United States will respond as it always has: "Eh, we're going to do whatever we want anyhow."