In article ,
Bruce L. Bergman wrote:

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:23:32 -0500, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:

I think the isp's are looking at the spam that comes in on the news groups.

Nope - not their concern unless it originates from one of their
subscribers. And it's simple enough to "Kill them all for TOS
Violations and let God sort 'em out."

The massive pictures and movies.

There's the real concern - that the RIAA and MPAA are going to show
up at their main office and demand a list of all the users downloading
copyrighted music and movies.

Or the FBI going after Kiddie Porn.

Or the Church (Spit!) of $c13nt0l0gee (*) trying to trace down and
persecute the people posting their Sup3r S33kr!t Skr!ptur3s. That are
based on a bad 1950's Sci-Fi book.

(* - Do NOT un-Leet-Speak that name above or type that name in the
clear, it's like saying Beetlejuice three times - they can use Google
too. And we do not want them here making trouble by the boatload.)

Or the BSA going after people up and downloading cracked copies of
Microsloth Orifice and AutoCad.

But they are treading a really fine line - by restricting access to
content, they are dangeroudsly close to editing it, and that can
switch them from a Common Carrier (we don't know what those bits are,
we just transport them!) to a Content Provider who CAN be held liable
for the content they allow through.

They'd be better off NOT trying to control content.

I think you are correct on the ISP's motives, but not on the
controlling-content theory, because the ISPs have not tried to stop the
use of alternate news services.

The advantage of alternate news services is that there are always
independent services that are out of the reach of any given crusading
politician and/or intruding vested interest, and when those politicians
and interests try to force the local ISP to prevent access to those evil
alternate services, constitutional freedoms of press and expression can
be invoked, and will almost always prevail in court.

I also think that the ISPs regard news services as more trouble than
they are worth, as they generate far too many calls to tech support, and
are glad to make it someone else's problem.

Joe Gwinn