At Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:15:05 -0700 (PDT),
Ole Jacobsen wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
> > I'm sorry, I don't see the difference between (a) and (c). Either our
> > activities violate the language of the contract or they don't. You say
> > that you don't agree that our activities violate the language. If so,
> > that's good news, but it would help if you shared your analysis so
> > that people who are concerned can come to the same conclusion as you.
>
> A litte bit of context is always helpful. Notice that the first
> sentence in the clause says "...defamation against the Government
> of the People's Republic of China..."
>
> Discussing encryption and its uses, for example, is not defamation fo
> any government unless you set it up as laundry list of "what's wrong
> with this country" (for any value of country) which isn't something
> you typically do at the IETF.
Uh, that clause is ORed with other clauses:
"Should the contents of the Group's activities, visual or audio
presentations at the conference,or printed materials used at the
conference (which are within the control of the Client) contain
any defamation against the Government of the People's Republic
of China, or show any disrespect to the Chinese culture, or
^^ ^^
violates any laws of the People's Republic of China or feature
^^
any topics regarding human rights or religion without prior
approval from the Government of the People's Republic of China,
the Hotel reserves the right to terminate the event on the spot
and/or ask the person(s) who initiates or participates in any or
all of the above action to leave the hotel premises immediately.
So, this isn't really that useful context for the rest of the
paragraph. To take the example of encryption, Ithink people
were arguing that it was a topic "regarding human rights".
With that said, it's not clear to me that saying "China's policy
of censoring the Internet sucks" isn't defamation.
> > > a) Not discuss our usual topics
> > > b) Stage a political rally
> > >
> > > The offending hotel clause, simply put, is a reminder of b.
> >
> > Now I'm really confused, because *this* sounds like my alternative
> > (b) above.
> >
> > Perhaps what you're saying here is that (1) the contract doesn't
> > prohibit these activities and (2) even if if did, our counterparties
> > can be trusted not to interpret it in a way we would find
> > objectionable. If so, I have to say I don't find this particularly
> > comforting: as I've seen no analysis to support (1) [and several
> > analysis which suggest the contrary], and (2) relying on intentions
> > rather than contract language seems like an extraordinarily unsafe
> > practice given the costs to us of having a meeting cancelled (even
> > if we're not on the hook for paying the hotel a bunch of money).
>
> Any language in any law or contract in any context is subject to
> interpretation and judgement.
Sure.
I'll rephrase my question then:
Is your claim that you believe that the contract would not be
found in a court of law to cover the described activities?
-Ekr
_______________________________________________
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf