Wake your self up idiot! ANY archiving of channel conversations are done at network and channel levels, not some 3rd party without permission.

No, irc channels by default are not secure but that doesn’t mean that its content is being logged and advertised for others outside the network to read.

as far as being recorded, 99% of the networks out there do NOT record channel conversations, a lot of users log the channel conversations but that’s only while they are there AND it’s on their machine, not some global accessable search engine. IF the channel log is shared it’s done by INDIVIDUALS!!

…

If you are on the street talking to a friend, you also don’t want somebody with a microphone sneaking at you and recording the conversation… Don’t you?

I do agree, that IRC networks nowadays should have a method to let a logger know it’s not allowed to log a channel, much like a robots.txt file. Then a channel owner can decide to let it log or not.

Most IRC networks like freenode doesn’t allow logging unless channel operator approves (and some other rules).

Ries

I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

However, you seem to be having trouble distinguishing between recording and publishing (and we are aware that some operators have published IRC logs before, but this doesn’t mean it is OK; simply getting away with a crime doesn’t make the action legal).

A. Publishing IRC conversations en-masse will certainly result in defamatory matter being published. This leaves IRSeek and its employees squarely liable for civil damages, and potentially the employees may also face criminal charges.

B. The authors of IRC conversations may very well hold copyright in those works. Only the author of the work has the right to publish it or communicate it to the public (unless that right has been licensed or assigned, which in this case it has not). Therefore, IRSeek and its employees may also be civilly liable and criminally responsible for violation of copyright (note that copyright was originally a civil action, but that recent changes have brought criminal penalties to the area).

I hope that all the people who have been saying “IRC has always been recorded” now realise that recording is not the issue (at least in a public channel). The issue is publication. While IRSeek may very well be entitled to record conversations from public IRC channels (although this is certainly far from a settled point of law, as the legality of conversations recorded on public IRC channels has not been decided in a court of law), it is indeed extremely unlikely that its business model has any immunity from the myriad potential defamation and copyright issues that inherently arise from the way the company has chosen to conduct its business.

IRSeek has no authority over this matter regardless of their goals or agendas.

It is in fact up to the networks (i.e. efnet, freenode) or servers (i.e. arcti.ca, servercentral.net) or the channels (i.e. #css) to make that call.

Accessing these services is a privilege, not a right. That clearly means the rules should be abused.

brrrr

Networks and ultimately it’s users have the RIGHT to privacy.

The german community is gathering information and knowledge on a wiki page: http://wiki.vor...erung.de/IRSeeK

An english version should be in the process of creation, too.