From: "Jim Sewell" <jims@Central.KeyWest.MPGN.COM>
Date: Thu, 26 May 94 14:16:20 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Unicorn vs....
In-Reply-To: <199405262028.NAA05462@netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9405262115.AA15425@Central.KeyWest.MPGN.COM>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


<In mail Mike Duvos said:>
> Said business associates, being relatively anal upper-class European 
> types with a great respect for authority, were singularly unamused by
> Mr. Unicorn's political views and the even worse things falsely 
> attributed to him by Mr. Tmp in the heat of discussion.  Mr. Unicorn 

    The key is falsely attributed to him by tmp@netcom.com.

> became worried that his business might suffer as a consequence.  Since I 
> personally believe that one should not discriminate in doing business 
> based on someones political beliefs, I would certainly characterize this 
> as a moral failure on the part of Mr. Unicorn's business associates, and 
> not the fault of Mr. Tmp.
  
	Granted, tmp is not responsible for so called moral failures on the
	part of European business associates of Uni's BUT tmp IS responsible
	for damaging Uni's reputation by making it look as if he said things
	that tmp couldn't prove he had said.  If Uni lost a 7 figure business
	deal because tmp attributed a comment to Uni that Uni didn't make then
	tmp is definitely guilty of damaging Uni's character and SHOULD be
	sued... 

    The bottom line is that when you play on the net and flame each other
	that is one thing, but when your games cause someone's business and
	real-life character to be damaged then you are playing in the real
	world and the name of the game there is SUE, RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR
	ACTIONS, and TAKE THE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS.  

> Antics like this threaten the entire concept of Usenet as a 
> reputation-based cooperative anarchy.  The solution to Mr. Tmp is to put 
> him in your killfile, not sue him into submission.  

   Who defined the concept?  I think of Usenet as a cooperative anarchy
   on the technological level of how it works, but as far as what people
   say I consider it to be a means of communication no different than
   speaking in public or on the telephone.  If I say terrible things
   about you on a mail list message it should be no different than if I
   say it in a crowded room of your business associates.
	
   Putting tmp@netcom.com in a kill file will be fine if his influence
   on your world is confined to the screen, but when he starts costing
   you potentially millions of dollars it is an entirely different 
   situation.  I don't think that kill file of yours will pay Uni's
   house mortgage or food bill!

 I suppose we all could use this as an opportunity to see how well
 our anarchist, freedom of speech, privacy, encryption ideas mesh
 with the 'real world'.  

 Jim

-- 
 Tantalus Inc.          Jim Sewell      Amateur Radio: KD4CKQ
 P.O. Box 2310          Programmer           Internet: jims@mpgn.com
 Key West, FL 33045     C-Unix-PC          Compu$erve: 71061,1027
 (305)293-8100                            PGP via email on request. 
 1K-bit Fingerprint: 8E 14 68 90 37 87 EF B3  C4 CF CD 9A 3E F9 4A 73