Slashdot Mirror
California Supreme Court OKs Web Libel Immunity
tanman writes "The California Supreme Court has ruled that websites which publish libelous text written by third parties cannot be sued for libel, reports CNN. The ruling found for the defendant, who was backed by the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. The internet service companies following the case feared that a ruling against the defendant would find them liable for content posted to their respective websites. Even though the court allowed this could have far-reaching consequences, they ultimately wanted this to be a question more for Congress than the courts." From the article: "The case centers on an opinion piece sent via e-mail to Ilena Rosenthal, a woman's health advocate who runs various message boards and promotes alternative medicine. The scathing missive, written by Tim Bolen, accused Dr. Terry Polevoy, of Canada, of stalking a Canadian radio producer and included various invectives directed at Polevoy and Dr. Stephen Barrett, of Pennsylvania. The two doctors operated Web sites devoted to exposing health frauds. After Rosenthal posted the piece to two newsgroups, Polevoy and Barrett sued her, Bolen and others for libel. The lawsuit accuses Rosenthal of republishing the information after being warned it was false and defamatory."
I'm no fan of lawsuits, and this decision is certainly a win for bloggers and most honest web publishers, but it sounds like the consequences of this decision were not well thought out (particularly in respect to the larger news organizations or tabloids).
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
The rules shouldn't be changed, but rather people should understand that the definition of "publish" has in fact changed. Google, MS, Slashdot, etc. are not making an active, reviewed, and personal decision to make public whatever information they receive, but are acting as worlds in which such information is indexed and searched. We should make a distinction between active publication and passive publication. This would definitely solve a few problems.
What the hell's a "gewie?"
I think your misunderstanding the ruling. Here's the clearest thing I saw from the article:
Unless Congress revises the existing law, people who claim they were defamed in an Internet posting can only seek damages from the original source of the statement, the court ruled..
So, if I were to write something libel about you in the comments section of a /. article, you can sue /. You can however, come after me. If a third party news site picks up and reports based on what I posted, you can go after them either. You can only come after the original source, in this case, me.
While the journalist in me applauds the decision, I have to wonder how far the underlying principle is going to be taken. If victims of libel can only pursue action against the original poster, what about cases where the original poster is anonymous? If no one but the original poster holds responsibility for the content -- even when it's known to be false and defamatory -- the opportunities for intentional, unfettered smear campaigns would seem to be enormous. ... I mean even more enormous than under our previous understanding of libel protections. I'm willing to pay an awful lot for free speech. Just hope I'm not on the receiving end of one of these smears.
I believe they are, though I'm not a lawyer - but the difference is that letters to the editor are, of necessity, read and vetted by the editorial staff. This means the decision to publish them is an implicit stamp of approval. Posts on the internet are not necessarily even seen by the people nominally "publishing" them.
/., for example, is not analogous to a traditional publisher. Holding slashdot liable for things said in comments would be more analogous to holding the paperboy liable for things said in the paper.
Really, the issue is what "publishing" means. Traditionally, publishing requires the publisher to select and edit stories which would then be pushed out to readers. The internet is different; a site like
My argument would be that the new publishers are the people hitting "submit" on the web form, since they're the ones selecting stories, validating them for truth (I crack me up), editing them for typos, and making the decision to make them public (i.e., "publish" them). Which is what this court decision seems to be in agreement with.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Except in this case Rosenthal did exercise editorial control. She doesn't run a blog comments section; she broadcast Bolen's accusations to Usenet under her own account.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I agree that rules shouldn't necessarily change - and I don't think they have, really. I think the distinction that needs to be made is not Passive vs Active publication (although those might be useful terms for the concept - rather, the concept of a printer - as opposed to a publisher or an editor needs to be brought forward into the the present day.
To apply the paradigm of hardcopy book writing, printing, and publishing to online content is not that difficult (one hopes it might even be simple enough for lawyers, courts, and lawmakers to understand - although understanding may not be sufficient in and of itself to keep those types of folk from screwing it up):
An individual who writes something is a writer.
When that individual posts writing to an internet forum - say a blog or a forum (for now I'm just talking about writing that is not being done as "work-made-for-hire" or some other editorially-controlled, other-directed work) - they are publishing that work. This individual can be said to be a self-published writer.
The individual, organization, or company providing the blog or forum technical facilities remain in a position analogous to that of a printer - in the "old-school" sense of the word, when "printer" was "someone who prints things [on a printing press]". Perhaps print shop would be more descriptive. In either case, whether you prefer printer or print shop (there is a subtle distinction in that the added shop may imply a company or organization, whereas printer might be taken to mean an individual, although in the old days "send it to the printers'" was a common phrase) - whichever you prefer, the printer has essentially no control over content, and is typically in no way responsible for the intellectual property content of the work.
I believe this is similar to the line of thought that went into the "common carrier" concept in telecommunications, which - while not directly applicable to this kind of situation - is obviously similar in it's handling of IP and [potentially] legally actionable communications.
Just as one does not prosecute (or sue) the phone company if a criminal uses a phone in the commission or a crime (or if a person slanders another over the phone), I don't know of many successful cases of a printer being sued or prosecuted over the contents of a book - perhaps if you went back to the early days of the printing press - I think some printers were prosecuted for printing e.g. Bibles, but they were arguably publishing (distributing) that work, as well as just printing it.
I believe I am correct in saying that it is typically the publisher - and to some extent the writer - who gets the legal fallout when something is written and released to the public which has legal ramifications. I actually think that is appropriate, provided we can make distinction between publishing and [what on the Internet amounts to] printing.
Also, there's the fact that if libel someone on the internet, I think I should get the full benefit of the publicity that goes along with the lawsuit (the phrase "there is no such thing as bad publicity" originated in the newspaper publishing industry, did it not?) - why should I share the spotlight with News Corp if I libel someone on MySpace.com, after all?
"The Internet is made of cats."