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Subject: Re: On avoiding Gothic Chess licensing problems

Author: Russell Reagan

Date: 09:27:32 06/19/04

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On June 19, 2004 at 10:21:16, Bryan Hofmann wrote:

>The server is located in the USA and the first amendment gives US citizens
>the right to free speech.

Your free speech is not protected here. What is protected by the first amendment
is the free speech of the hosts of this website. If the owner wants to post
unpopular political views, he can do so all day long. If any other member in a
non-owner capacity wants to post unpopular political views, the owner can kick
that member out. After all, it's his server. He can just as easily pull the plug
from the wall. If he wanted to ban people with red hair, just for fun, that is
within his right. He may take some heat for how he runs his website, but it is
his freedom of speech that is protected here, not yours.

If you ran a web server program from your computer, you could start a message
board and post whatever you want, and ban whoever you want. Then it becomes an
issue of your free speech.

In reality, there may be some other issues involved. Maybe the company you buy
bandwidth from doesn't want to be associated with you, and they cancel your
service. That's not violating your free speech. The details could get
complicated, but you get the basic idea.



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