Do The Good People Of Florida Think Your Website Is Obscene? You Better Hope Not.

Thanks to the folks from Calf. who alerted me to these stories. And yes, Media General not only has servers in Florida, they have newspapers and properties there:

From the Silicon Valley Insider:

Paul F. Little, works under the moniker "Max Hardcore," lives and works in California. But that didn't stop the Feds from hauling Little 2,500 miles across the country to Tampa, Florida, where they convinced a jury to convict him on 20 counts of obscenity this week. Why Tampa? Because, prosecutors successfully argued, Little's Websites used some servers there.

Jury-shopping -- trying to try your case in a town where the locals are likely to be in your favor -- is a time-honored tradition in the U.S. legal system. But the Web opens up a whole new world of possibilities for aggressive prosecutors. In this case, says the St. Petersburg Times: "Defense attorneys said Little never knew his site was housed in Tampa, and that prosecutors never produced any evidence that he did." Presumably he'll bring that up before a Federal judge, who has the ability to sentence him to a 100 years in prison -- 5 years for each count.

How did we get here? Start back in the 70s, when the U.S. Supreme Court had to grapple with how to define "obscenity." (Legal geeks: We're talking Miller v. California.) The Court's Solomonic "cut the baby in half" response was to say local "community standards" dictate what's over the line. At the time that made sense: In the 70s porn was mainly distributed through local stores, and the decision allowed conservative rural farm towns to set a different standard than Greenwich Village.

But whose community standards apply to content on the Internet? Prosecutors can -- and do -- argue since Internet material is available everywhere, an obscenity trial can be brought anywhere. Employing physical webservers based in a socially conservative jurisdiction makes any defense all the harder.

Little's lawyers have already vowed appeal, but until and unless the courts re-visit the old "community standards" provisions, hosting blue content on webservers located in a less-than-liberal town has just become a very dicey proposition.

So, where are your servers?

Ooops....my bad...

Armand's job is not Courier Corp....where he only stayed a couple of months. Sorry Armand, all they'll say is you no longer "work" there anymore....

Now you're publisher at um...let's see, a reader wrote in to say and a quick check with your staff confirmed (bad publisher...your name isn't listed on your website!! Why not??!! Someone looking for you maybe?) that you are indeed the publisher as this little news item also said:

"Armand Nardi is the new publisher at the Gainesville Daily Register. Nardi comes to Gainesville from Winter Haven, Fla., where he was publisher of the News Chief. He started working in newspapers in 1989 Nardi also has responsibility for advertising due to the recent retirement of David Mann." Hmmm..wonder why they left out the two month stint at Courier Corp.? Tsk Tsk Tsk....Must be that underbelly thing you've got going on....the lure of Walt Disney eh?

Folks, you can link to Nardi's current PUBLISHING job by clicking HERE. Click fast! He's WORKING SO HARD (life is not a doll factory you know) that he may work himself into something BETTER!!