[HPFGU-Feedback] RE: ADMIN: Possible Threat to HPfGU lists

[Kathryn Cawte]

"The Loudest Noise Comes From The Electric Minerva."

Iggy here:

This comment made something click in my mind...  And this is also
directed at those who say that the HPfGU has some great legal minds that
have looked over the terms of use, in addition to being mainly aimed at
those who comment that 16 is the UK age of consent.

It doesn't matter if 16 is the age of consent in the UK.

Yahoo is based in the US, and is bound by the laws of the US with regard
to issues relating to sex with minors.


K

And if Harry were to fly to America in order to get laid that would be
relevent. However he isn't and the laws regarding sex with minors in the US
are only applicable to the act not to discussion about it. It is not against
Yahoo's rules to discuss someone doing something that is perfectly legal
where they are. And anyway as several people have pointed out the group
isn't at threat because of something it is or is not doing but rather due to
a particularly malicious individual who seems to want to use Yahoo's
notoriously unreliable enforcement proceedures against us.

I would also point out that the admin team who brought the threat to our
attention never even mentioned the idea of us discussing something that
could cause us to get shut down - that was simply a suggestion made by a
listee.


Iggy

The best rule for any group on a service such as Yahoo is not to go by
the laws of their own country, but by the laws of the country the server
is housed at.  Those laws will be the ones that take precedence.

K

Actually the best rule is to abide by their terms of service - which we are.

Iggy

 (I will also point
out that the minute JKR ever decides to put in any scene of overt
sexuality and/or depiction of an actual intimate intercourse, not only
will the readership drop drastically for school kids and the complaints
from outraged parents rise, but if the characters are under 18, then it
risks not being picked up in the US at all.)

K

Which why no one has suggested there will be any overt sexuality in the
books - they are after all aimed at children and/or teenagers and I can
hardly see JKR suddenly deciding to write Harry Potter - the Mills & Boone
edition, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in her world (albeit
offscreen) and isn't worth discussing. (I'd use my Albus/Sev example again
as to what we're not going to see but I hear that that's an image some
people didn't want in their minds <g>)

K