Publishing Now Counts As Now

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."

Comments

A reasonable decision.

[uncoveror]

I applaud the court for this decision. If the date of publication changed everytime somone new viewed a web page, then the statute of limitations would be rendered meaningless. Defamation suits are usually just slapp suits anyway. The fewer of them we have wasting the courts' time, the better.

Not necessarily good...

[cperciva]

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.

The situation on the web is rather different from with traditional publishing, since it is much easier for web pages to be "published" well in advance of when any significant number of people see them.

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.

Re:Not necessarily good...

[Rogerborg]

• The situation on the web is rather different from with traditional publishing, since it is much easier for web pages to be "published" well in advance of when any significant number of people see them.

Oh, please stop with the "web is different" mantra. It's possible for a defamatory printed article to be passed around a few friends, get published in a dorm magazine, move up to a college magazine, get picked up by a local newspaper, then go national. At any of these stages, it could be modified, expanded, redacted or for that matter OCR'd and media shifted to the web or CD-ROM. Heck, fake false dated versions could be produced at any point. It would be up to a court to decide what the first "publication" was, and whether it preceeded the version presented by the plaintiff by a year. Similarly, as a court would have to decide if the hidden version was publically available a year before it was noticed by the plaintiff or was shifted to a more public forum. Courts are actually rather good at deciding these things.

Books &co..

[oliverthered]

Is the publication date of a Book, the day it first went to press or the day the last copy was sold. I'm confused.

If the publication date of a news paper the day it was published, or the last day that someone wrappes up a china set with it before mnoving house.

Oh please help me clear my confussed mind.

Re:Determining the posting date

[alsta]

I would tend to agree with this. If you could use an archive of some sort, you'd also have to prove that it was a `neutral' source. Non-affiliated or whatever. The point that you're making and very well so is that this is a big mess and should be dealt with accordingly.

The posting date should clearly be the date when the clock starts ticking. Even if the web allows many times for dynamic content, created on the fly, it still should be considered published. Setting precedents like these is very dangerous.

But then again, who is to say that the posting is `published' to a small group first and in the 11th hour (11 months and 2 weeks later) gets published in the real world... There are all kinds of sleazebags out there.

It's complicted

[JanneM]

The whole issue of 'publication date' is very slippery online. With books or newspapers, it's easy, but on the net, it can be a very difficult issue.

Assume I've written a rant where I accuse CowboyNeal of secretly harboring immoral thoughts about herring. I put it up on my private web page. That should be the publication date, no? Well, maybe. Nobody could find it as there are no links to it, and I don't tell anybody about it.

Suddenly Google gets hold of the link. Is that the publication date, now that people can actually find the page? On one hand, the text may have languished on a nowhere website for ten years, and I've totally forgotten about it, so surely I can't be punished for google finding it ten years after it being written? On the other hand, is it considered published (or even defamation) if nobody can find it unless I tell them where to look?

It all erupts into a huge uproar; CowboyNeal denies everything and maintains he has unhealthy obsessions only for salmon, but never, ever, herring. Of course /. picks it up and adds a newsitem about it - complete with a link to the text. Is that publication? By me or by /.? Can I get into trouble for something /. does? Can /. be sued for defamation by providing that link, even if the statute of limitation has elapsed on the text for me?

This is just scratching the surface, of course; the problem here (as with so many aspects of the net) is that concepts that are clear and workable offline do not translate well online. /Janne

Re:Determining the posting date

[jiminim]

If only there were a moderation called "Scary"

Proving it was published

[starX]

What I'm kind of curious about is how they are ever going to prove that the web page WAS in fact published. It would be really easy to download the front page of any web site, put in some defamatory comments, and then claim that it was published on such and such date. Don't get me wrong, I actually think this is one of the few YRO that strikes me as a step in the right direction, but I fail to see what the definitive criteria for establishing publication is. For someplace with lots of readers (like slashdot), it's easy, as there are plenty of witnesses, but something tells me not too many people visit or could vouch for my website on a regular basis. Any ideas on what you can do to protect yourself?