3 ms·
I know other comments have touched on this a bit, but "any digital file" reminds me that some people think that some files are bad and should not be sold at all
by schoen 6y ago
I know other comments have touched on this a bit, but "any digital file" reminds me that some people think that some files are bad and should not be sold at all. And they sometimes do stuff to try to enforce those views.
Is "any file" meant to suggest that you're aspiring to be more content-neutral than other intermediaries, or was it just meant as something more like "any file type"? (e.g. the same platform can sell music, movies, photos, models, e-books, etc.)
As an intermediary in 2020, you're likely to see a lot of people target you in various ways because they don't like things that people are using your platform for. They may threaten you with lawsuits, complaints to law enforcement, boycotts, DDoS, trying to get your payment relationships cut off, trying to get your other platform providers to cut you off, etc. If your platform has a high profile or is used to sell something high-profile, journalists and politicians may publicly second-guess your content decisions (both things that you did remove and things that you didn't remove).
I don't want to alarm you about this, but it would be nice if you could figure out any content and moderation policies ahead of time, explain them clearly to prospective sellers, and then see if you can stick to them when other people disagree with them. :-)
P.S. EFF has some good resources about §512 and §230 issues for intermediaries, and is always interested in hearing from intermediaries who get U.S. legal threats that the intermediaries find questionable or improper (related to third-parties' use of a service).
P.P.S. I've never been an intermediary or platform operator, but a common thread that I've heard from different lawyers in this space is that it's amazing how much conflict your users' creative use of your platform may draw you into about issues that you never even thought about. :-(