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Publishing Now Counts As Now

Posted by timothy on from the imagine-the-alternative dept.

wik writes "The New York Times reports that the statute of limitations for defamation is one year from the date of posting a page on the web. The courts had to decide whether the posting date or the last download date of a web page constitutes the publication date."

4 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not necessarily good... by AndrewHowe · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... if you just say 'Mr. T is a fool!' to Mr. T himself and nobody else hears it, that maybe be an insult, but it's not slander.

    Either way, it sounds like suicide!

  2. Now? by sigemund · · Score: 5, Funny

    DARK HELMET: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
    COL. SANDERS: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.
    DARK HELMET: What happened to then?
    COL. SANDERS: We passed then.
    DARK HELMET: When?
    COL. SANDERS: Just now. We're at now, now.
    DARK HELMET: Go back to then.
    COL. SANDERS: When?
    DARK HELMET: Now!
    COL. SANDERS: Now?
    DARK HELMET: Now!
    COL. SANDERS: I can't.
    DARK HELMET: Why?
    COL. SANDERS: We missed it.
    DARK HELMET: When?
    COL. SANDERS: Just now.
    DARK HELMET: When will then be now?
    COL. SANDERS: Soon

  3. Re:It's complicted by quantaman · · Score: 5, Funny
    I put it up on my private web page...

    ... Of course /. picks it up and adds a newsitem about it - complete with a link to the text. Is that publication? (or even defamation)

    No, if your private web page actually holds up to the /. effect long enough for anyone to see it I think CowboyNeal rather than sueing you will give you an award!

    --
    I stole this Sig
  4. Re:Determining the posting date by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Funny
    They're going to have a bit of a problem determining the posting date, as the date header in the http response can quite easily be forged.

    C'mon, we're all smart enough here to know that this problem is easily solved.

    Your Palladium IIS server will upload a unique document ID and publication date for all documents you publish to a central government server that tracks the publication of all documents. Additionally, each time a document is read, the trusted IIS server will notify the government document tracking server that the document was read and by who.

    Problem solved. Now it is easy to determine any of...
    1. The date the document was put on the web
    2. The date of the first download
    3. The date of the last download
    4. The dates of any revisions to the document
    5. And best of all... who is reading what documents!
    etc.

    As for implementation, the government document tracking server would probably need to be distributed, sort of like the root name servers. We could put ICANN in charge of this.

    This not only solves the problem, but also helps with our oh so important copyright protection. Someone else publishing the same document without permission could be tracked down.

    It's good for everyone. The economy. The Govt would spend $$ on servers. MS would rake in the profits. The RIAA / MPAA would love us. And it would help in defamation suits so that everyone would quit saying negative things about anyone else.

    Now what was Fritz's address again?
    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.