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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."

3 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not necessarily good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    Unless I'm missing something, if I want to defame someone in the US now, all I have to do is upload the material to a web site, and wait 12 months before I give anyone a link to it.

    [..]

    If there is to be a 12 month statute of limitations, I think that the window should begin *when the plaintiff becomes aware of the material*, not when it was actually published.

    Usually, publishing means making something public, i.e. giving the public access to it. If you defame someone on cnn.com, but the plaintiff only hears about it ten years later, it would still have been published ten years previously.

    Also, remember that to defame some-one, there has to be at least one third party involved; 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.

  2. Re:Determining the posting date by AndrewHowe · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry... Following up my own comment...
    This earlier decision said:

    "If the article is altered or edited in a different matter, or if a defamatory article is placed in a new form (such as the first posting of a previous print-only publication on the Internet), a new statute of limitations period will begin to commence on the date of such republication. Said the court:

    A republication will occur when the defamatory article is placed in a new form (paperback as opposed to hardcover) or edited in a different manner."

  3. Time by barberio · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just to play devil's advocat, here is the oposite side of the argument.

    This question is made more dificult because the statute of limitations on libel is so small partialy because publishing is considered a timely issue. An article in a paper published a year ago is less damaging to you than one published yesterday.

    But on the internet, a webpage published a year ago is still there. It still comes up in search engines today, and is just as potentialy damaging as it was a year ago.