Slashdot Mirror
ISPs Liable For Content?
seizer writes "For
a while now, the assumption has been that ISPs get "common
carrier" status, although it isn't enshrined in law. That
is, like telephone companies, they are not liable for the
uses to which the network is put. So check out this
Wired story,
where Mr Laurence Godfrey wants to take on UK ISP Demon
over a spoofed Usenet posting in his name." I got
a phone call from Bill Clinton yesterday that I think was a hoax.
I wanna sue Ameritech. Wonder how long this will last?
Even though I often use Usenet for help when I have problems, talk about games and such and such, I found it to be helpfull...
but I never take seriously all the postings, actually I do take them into consideration and check them out first (but thats about technical stuff)...
anything that would be personal I consider as trash and waste of Usenet, and dont even bother reading at all.
The ISP was warned about the content 3 times, or so it is stated in the article. Since UK law is different then the US Demon may be in trouble. No matter what is said ISP's are libel for content that they have had compaints about and have done nothing to fix, especially if they recieved more than 1 complaint about it.
This sort of thing shouldn't even be considered. Making a carrier responsible for content carried? Please...that means I can sue the US Mail or Canada Post for unwanted junk mail, and my local Telco for telemarketers and phone solicitors.
People need to get their heads out of their buttholes.
Does anyone know anything about this Laurence Godfrey fellow? It seems an unusual person that would have cause for filing 10 separate libel suits. Is he really disliked? Is there one person or group of people randomly posting nasty things about him or falsely attributing nasty things to him all over the internet?
Regardless, I'm in agreement with I'm sure most other slashdotters in feeling that it's ridiculous to hold the ISP or any carrier liable in a case such as this. Would this make every ISP that provides access to the newsgroup in question liable as well? Ridiculous!
- posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
Now that the impeachment story is over and the media are actually having to *work* to have some news, I think I see two disturbing trends among newscasters:
1) attempting to revive the impeachment story, and
2) [the relevance of this post] vilifying the internet.
I guess I saw *way* too many newscasts Monday, but there were at least three stories where the media more or less overtly called for more content control on the net. These were:
a) some of the usual "protect the children from porn" complaints,
b) a story about an ISP being sued because one of his customers had posted some faked nudes of an actress, and
c) a story about some kids who hurt themselves trying to build a bomb from instructions obtained over the net.
The third was interesting because they asked a LE Officer whether any charges would be filed, and he said yes, if they found out who furnished the gunpowder. He, at least, seemed to be aware that they didn't download the actual bombs!
At any rate, in all three cases the media divagated from straight reporting to the point of taking sides and (it seemed to me) outright calling for someone to protect us from ourselves.
Alas, the law is an ass.
FWIW, I'm a (concerned) Demon user...
uhh.... Am I really missing something here? If you are someone like him that can easily be victim of forged messages since you are leading an internet related campaign, why not digitally sign your messages?????????
I mean come on!!!!
Many times when someone tries to sue for a stupid reason and the case is thrown out the other side will file a countersuit to pay for legal fees. I would know about this stuff... since I am a lawyer.
Buwhahahahahaha...
Mail spoofs are simple..
:D
Telnet to any machine runng SMTP, on the SMTP port (is it 23 or 25)... then
MAIL FROM:billg@microsoft.com
RCTP TO:luser@aol.com
DATA
hello.. this is my email
. [ctrl]+[c]
wee.... Ofcourse, the mailserver will complain that user didnt use the HALO protocol (dunno what that is, but something with authentication)..
Also some ISPs wont even allow you to connect if your IP isnt one of theirs... Also they transport your IP unless you know a server that STRIPS an IP... then you are Anonymous and Untraceble...
I really hate myself for saying this, but:
What about suing him back? As I recall, there is a certain legal precedent for suing someone who sues you, on the grounds that their suit is intended either to annoy or otherwise cause damage to your reputation.
Isn't this how some companies defend themselves against environmentalist lawsuits?
Yea they couln't stay connected to get MS SP 4.
(rim-shot)
- just another Anonymous Coward
The guy is a twit, and generally proof that the only one who can make you look foolish is yourself. Especially on usenet.
I know one of the guys he sued. The suit a nuisance and has no basis in fact, but the twit might win by default judgement anyway.
Yeah, I'm Anon. Sosumi.
A previous article on the moron in question.
When ISP's have a system for easy wiretapping and tracing for use by the gov't, only then will the gov't grant common carrier status to ISPs. That's what's really keeping CC status from ISPs.
Whatever you say, sparky.
Maybe you should think about what the international community has contributed to the internet before you type such nonsense.
Thanks for the info. I had a suspicion it was something like this, but didn't want to jump to conclusions.
/. or its administrators in any way (except maybe coincidentally), and even I am not extremely attached to them. That is, I wish no ill intent on our seemingly litigation-happy Mr. Godfrey. (It sort of sickens me that I felt the need to add that disclaimer, but I'm sure that Rob & Co. don't want to find themselves on a courtroom docket anytime soon, even if I'm sure they would win...)
IANAL, but it seems as though the lawyer(s) handling this case for Demon ought to be able to use this somehow... set up a history of frivolous lawsuits to damage his credibility or something. At the very least they should understand his m.o.
Note that these musings are my own, do not reflect the opinions of
-posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
I hope that others in the U.S. are getting as tired of this ploy as I am.
Whenever a bunch of fanatical adults get their dander up, they trot out a bunch of pre-schoolers, hand 'em a sign, and have them parade around in front of the TV cameras. As though the kids even have an ounce of an idea of why their parents dragged them away from the platground...
Pathetic.
ISPs in the US are not liable for content posted by their users thanks to the untouched portions of the CDA. This has been hashed out in court several times. Info on one of the first cases involving that law can be found here:
5 54.html 3 61.html
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/8
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/7
The only clear issue ISPs can be found liable for is copyright violations by their user if they don't follow the mandates of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Info can be found here:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/onlinesp/
Are you nuts? Where would I get my porn if we cut of the rest of the world??
Seriously, the rest of the world has contributed a lot to the development of the Internet today, especially in the open source movement.
In a perfect world judges would have the right to rule that a case is not only trivial but downright insulting, and have the defendant and his/her legal staff publicly tarred and feathered. Unfortunately our world is far from perfect, and victory in a lawsuit is solely dependent on the amount of money one can throw at the case. This guy has a fair chance of winning, thus assuring much pain and suffering on the part of the wiser judges and lawyers who will have to deal with the nasty precedent it will set.
All legality aside, consider this: no one would get as riled as this guy seems to be over someone posting "I bugger 8-year-old boys" in their name unless they really DO bugger 8-year-old boys.
Anonymous Coward #20239, who supports public tarring and feathering for just about every imaginable crime.
While we're on the subject, can Linux servers filter things? I realize we're all against censorship and everything, but it seems pretty reasonable for parents trying to proetect their kids (and no, they can't watch their kids at the computer all the time). Can Linux filter out bad material as a proxy or are we all so anti-censorship that this can't work?
He's suing the ISP that carried it. What would keep him from also suing the phone company that carried the message to the ISP, the power company that supplied the power, the coal company, and so on. It's stupid! It's not the ISP's fault, its the fault of the original poster.
...which is, what, $0.0275 Canadian?
Spam mail is one thing. I hate junk mail of
all types. But that's being delivered directly
to an individual.
Nobody made Dr. Smartypants download a news
browser _or_ subscribe to a newsgroup or
download any headers or search for his name
and download the bodies. He was a most
active participant, it sounds like.
Nice physicist. 10 lawsuits. What a joke.
-k
Here's a mass email that I got this morning in response to a question about how my college could be improved:
TAKE ME OFF OF YOUR EMAIL LIST. IT IS CLOGGING MY SYSTEM UP. I AM ALSO TAKING THIS MATTER TO THE HEAD OF OIT. YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS EMAILING ME. IF I GET ANY MORE EMAILS YOU CAN ASSURE A LAWSUIT. THANK YOU.
Demon is a biggie isp here in the uk, and theres already rumblings about regulating newsgroup access.
:P
Quite a few of the uk isp's already restrict access to quite a few of the newsgroups by simply removing them at source, because the police warned them they may be liable.
Big brother isnt coming, hes already in the uk and has been for many years, and he's trying to stop the spread of freedom via the mouthpiece of complete wankers like this guy.
To expect a nationwide isp to be able to edit every single newsgroup posting on the say so of prats like this is completely unrealistic, more so is the thought that he has MADE a issue out of this in his crusade. The idiot could even have got someone else to post it on his behalf.
Off to spam myself in the interests of profit (hey dont laugh, theres probally someone in the uk who would take the witch hunt seriously and pay for the story)
This guy is infamous in the soc.culture.(canada|german|thai) newsgroups.
He basically offends everyone with unsolicited ethnic slurs.
In the German group one person asked on what to give as a birthday present, and LG
goes on a monologue on how he "always buys his german friends gaz"; he
pissed off the Thais by once saying that all Mercedeses in Thailand
are owned by drugs dealers. And his dislike for Canadians has been
surmised to stem from a possible sacking from a position
there. Mentioning that in a newsgroup that he monitors
will get you a lawsuit threat. This guy sued Philip Hallam-
Baker, one of the original WWW team at CERN (and another High-Energy Physicist), you might find more there. But LG is the person who made me realise that not everybody with a doctorate was worthy of respect. His posts were funny sometimes (because of their stupidity), but his spew, and the flamage it provoked, just ruined the newsgroup. He is, in fact, on the Net.Kooks list.
Yes, we have Linus right here in out cozy nation. Finland must've been limiting. Einstein came here to release his best work and harness the atom and unravel the universe. Edison left Canada to unleash and profit from all his inventions under the Red, White and Blue. All the great minds will come here if they want to really prosper from their own hard work. Of course all this is in addition to our own great minds. We don't need the world to live well. We're already the best nation on the planet!
What about your Mexican cousins, who also live in North America? Oh... they are not your cousins but a inferior race, I suppose.
didn't say they weren't common, just that they WILL cost you ;)
no, that's rude, but it's a girl if anyone wants to be sexist. ../../AC
-
Most of the common carriers (i.e. telco's, baby bells) provide some form of mechanism to subscribers to trace an obscene / anonymous call. This may be in the form of caller id or a number you dial right after the call to alert the telco to tag it incase you need to file a police report about the call.
Most of the ISP's on the other hand have NO CLUE on how to stop spam, secure their mail, news and web servers.
Think about the times you get spammed and think about the times you get called by a telemarketer. Now who can you take action against.. not the e-mail spammer.
How about libel? An ISP provides a mechanism for Joe Public to publish his opinions on a worldwide forum. A common carrier essentially allows two way communication between two individuals (and here I have to plead ignorance about the law).
So could someone use the "ISP allows someone to publish" and equate it to libel somewhat similar to a newspaper allowing someone to publish a letter on their editorial pages?
Just playing the devils advocate here.
Shri
Free speach is great until its been used against you.
Actually Einstein did his best work (Special Relativity and General Relativity) before he moved to the US.
I'm actually accumulating hundreds of emails that people in our company receive every day that are addressed to user@internet.com and the like. We are losing business $ with the bandwidth and lost time employees have to spend dealing with this crap. (Recognizing it is junk and clicking delete takes time & brain power.)
I ultimately expect my ISP to pay for this. Whether it is a settlement, reduction in overall rates based on the percentage of crap vs. real business messages or a legal judgement will depend on the ensuing discussion.
My company does not intend to directly or indirectly financially support companies who are spamming our employees at a work email address.
The ISP knows that my address is dave.bennett@inlandtruck.com and not user@internet.com and I feel it is their responsibility, just as with the Post Office, to ensure that the correct mail is delivered to me. Not every piece of trash someone decides to shove through their system.
Dave Bennett
Chief Information Officer
Inland Truck Parts Company
No - Mr Godfrey told the ISP that it had materials that he thought were libelous on their servers, which is completely different. Should the ISP remove this material on the basis of one persons unsupported claim? In my opinion no. He can sue afterwards (which he is doing), but hopefully the court will come to the sensible decision (i.e. the stupid decision is that ISPs must remove material if somebody claims it is libellous).
For a CIO, you seem awfully ignorant about SMTP. I'm no expert on it, either, but at least I know that the address inside the "envelope" has no bearing on the delivery of the message and is easily manipulated.
I know that if Dr. Godfrey wins this case ISP's in the UK may well up root and call it quits because no ISP has the man power to cover all the complaints they recieve in a day because of content they hold on their servers. I think this lawsuit is bullshit but if you look at European internet laws Demon could very well be initially held liable for not responding to complaints in a prompt and efficiant manner. This is my eyes is a stupid case which should never have gotten this far but it did and I'm sure what ever happens it will change the ways UK ISP's do business.
While the UK may not be the top place for freedom ,it's not that bad.
Don't believe all the hype - the US in not the free-est in the world. Maybe it is if you want to carry a gun....
Take a closer look at Australia and New Zealand - the freedom of speech is as good as the US (or better), and you have real freedom of political association, much less religious bigotry and fanaticism, and much greater freedom from threats by big business, big money and violence.
Scandanvians are also pretty hot on freedoms, as are the Dutch, and suprising as it sometimes seems from overseas, so are the Italians (hell, if the don't like a law, they'll just ignore it anyway!).
It's a big world - open your eyes and get out there - travel around. You'd be suprised at the number of "facts" you believe in that are illusions.
______________________________________________
The more I learn, the more I know, the more I know the more I know I know bugger all!
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
This reminds me of the time my father got into a
car accident.
He hit the guy broadside. It was at night in the
snow. The guy he hit was driving with his
headlights off and blasted right through
a blinking red light (my father having a
bliking yellow). The guy also reeked of alcohol
and was barhopping.
This guy sued my father and the insurance company
settled with him for a few shiney pennies.
Stupid Lawsuits at a drop of the hat seem to
be the current trend...unfortunalty it is
very profitable.
I say lets chang ethe law so that if you bring
a stupid lawsuit to court...the judge has the
power to not only dismiss the case, but
fine you for the ENTIRE cost of the suit
(including the amount of money it cost to
pay the judge, security, other persons lawyers
etc for the time of the trial)
Then see how many frivolous suits we see.
Posted by jeremycrabtree:
It's my understanding that is EXACTLY how it works here. You can sue, but if you're wrong, and loose YOU pay for the whole mess.
"The suit was filed by physicist Laurence Godfrey, who for several years has run a personal crusade to force the Internet to submit to national libel laws."
Uh, maybe that's why he got dissed, 'cause he's been a pita in public? Just a thought. I mean if you take an unpopular stand in usenet groups, and harp on it, well, folks'll let you know, know what I mean?
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
See related links: Free Speech, But Whose?
The problem is, apparently, Mr. Godfrey has filed numerous lawsuits (10) in several similar but unrelated incidents. The suits include parties in Austrailia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.
It's the suits against foreign ISPs that will prove 'interesting'. In effect, they are being sued in the UK for not doing something that could get them sued in the US.
I thought the newstand analogy was a bit weak. I would have compared it to the phone company. I told the phone company several times that Joe Blow was using the phone to say bad things about me to his friends, and they didn't take his phone away.
I also have to wonder what he expected Demon to do. After all, many news servers are set up to ignore cancel messages due to the many fake cancels that have been sent out in the past. I suppose Mr. Godfrey would sue the owners of those servers as well.
This article from the BBC as I read it says he's not challenging the ISPs status as just the carrier (not responsible for content). His lawyers are saying they want that defence to be refused in this case because Demon were requested to remove the article.
So, he's actually requiring ISPs to act in a new role as censors overriding the existing responsibilities of usenet group owners, moderators, and contributors. Was the offending article even posted by another Demon user?
Did Dr Godfrey ask the usenet group moderator to remove the article? If there really is a case to be answered here, its whether usenet group owners/moderators are legally responsible for content. At the end of the day, responsibility for the actions of an individual rest with that individual.
Suppose the moderator of the soc.thai group, or whatever, is supported by their ISP and their govt, in not removing the offending article. What's to stop their ISP putting the article right back?
Seems to me he's only suing Demon because he thinks he's got a better chance than suing the person who is responsible for removing the forgery; ie, the perpetrator. It is not up to an ISP to censor the internet, and I hope Demon fight this vigorously.
Doesn't matter if you do it in print .snip.
YOU being the operative word.
The ISP didn't libel this guy. There is no USENET desk editor to approve or disapprove of every 'story' that appears on the server.
The guy might as well sue the internet. He's just grubbing for money. He knows the defamation, whatever it was, will not be stopped because there are 100,000 drives spinnin the same 'libelous' comment around the world. The ISP cannot issue a retraction (which is often another payoff of a libel suit) since it did not issue the original statement! Any ISP which denies responibility/ownership of material has issued a retraction in advance, anyway. It is not up to an ISP to decide what is libelous and what is not. It's a legal term!
If a human wrote a 'libelous' comment, then sue the freakin human. Like he has done before. (How the hell do you sue someone overseas? This f*ck is the guy to ask, I guess.)
The guy is BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE. The wonders of tenure!
Let's not forget about the EU decision to make web and media caching illegal without prior permission (Wired Article).
I hope that Europe wises up to the need for Internet free speech.
(uh, I guess I should read the rest of the story first...)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
> No matter what is said ISP's are libel for content that they have had compaints about and have done nothing to fix, especially if they recieved more than 1 complaint about it.
bull
shit
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
It's the same old "thought police" shit.
Since We're all free to say whatever we
want, this causes TERRIBLE concern to
quite a few people in the U.S.
The MAIN thing is to restrict the First Amendment
down to microscopic size. This will allow
the people who "know what's good for us" to
"GUIDE" us in the correct way of speaking.
(Remember Politically Correct THOUGHT ??)
Sorry,but I'm FAR more radical than they are.
Ship anyone who would screw with the Bill of Rights to Siberia.
JimB
--
Um, most people get jobs to take care of that. But then again... I can't see why anyone would want to hire this bozo. Plus he'd probably spend all his time trolling newsgroups.
Leilah
~ Leilah
Why did you not sue back?
Stupid lawsuits should be discouraged as all this abuse of the legal system just makes life harder for everyone. I remember a Sliders episode once where they happened to slide to an earth where something like 80% of the population practiced law. It was very funny to watch as you could not do anything without fear of being sued, but very scary as well.
So ok if this guy wins, he will shut down the net for most of us. Nice way to be remembered I think. Does he do anything other than bring lawsuits against people?
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
ISP are now responsible for the content the users put on theire Web site. Check the following link http://www.altern.org/defense/ .
:-(
AlternB (a non profit organisation that offers free ISP in France) has been asked by the court to pay 405000F (i.e 110K $) for having a user that put illegal content on his website!!!
It's going to become crazy nowaday
In the USA the standing portions of the original CDA offer complete protection from liability for slander and defamation for ISPs. And while I think that most of these defamation cases are silly, and that the ISP should not be held liabel so easily. Holding any ISP liabel for the content posted entirely by a normal user would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. We all know that it is not realistically possible to hold every ISP accountable for the actions of its users. The ISPs's only alternative would be to kill all forms of interactive media and preview/parse all web pages...and even then it would not get all of it. ISPs should be viewed as a common carrier in regards to defamation and the like.
However, there are a few cases in which I think it might just be appropriate. Take the infamous Drudge report for example. AOL effectively profited directly from the behavior of a known gossip columnist. Drudge was not a normal user. AOL knew about his behavior, they had recieved complaints, and they even had a keyword setup for him on AOL. However, technically, as I recall, the CDA offers protection to AOL in this case. In truth, AOL is and should be treated as a republisher in such a case.
Even though the ISP may not be liable in the US, the UK may well be another story entirely. The US legal standards, such as they are, are not universal.
The UK, for example, does have a frivalous bounder on their books. If you sue, and loose, you pay the other guys legal fees.
And furthermore, there's nothing common about common sense.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
In the UK, if you swear on the telephone, the telephone company has technically broken the law. They have the same legal status as a publisher.
Once we start getting closer to December 31, 1999 the only thing you'll be hearing about from the media is about y2k, unfortunatly. "My toaster might not brown the bread correctly because of y2k, so I'm going to take all my money out of the bank, and spend it on 5 years worth of food and supplies to go along with the bomb shelter in the backyard" :)
:)
My site contains 100% GPL'd source code
mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
ISP's are NOT responsible. Whoever wrote the page or said the quote is...
Evan
Do the obvious to e-mail me.
I agree. It seems that vilifying the internet is about the same as vilifying free speech.
It takes responsibility to properly use free speech. There will always be those who abuse it, and we'll all have to deal with it -- that's once price of being able to say what we want to.
I frown upon those who are quick to state "There should be a law against that."
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
So, to make these people who can't survive a little bruse happy, we'll need to moderate all newsgroups, ban personal web pages, censor email, etc . . . The costs would kill the internet.
I think the internet is already too far along to be killed.
I think the best thing about the internet is not what its done for computers, but what it will do for society -- force the issue of free speech. Hopefully free speech will eventually be brought to the entire world, accelerated by the internet.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
Here's a question.
I call Godfrey a tosser here, on the slashdot comments, he will come and sue me.
Me=London,UK.
Server=USA somewhere.
Who's law applies, the insult comes from the USA, but originated in the UK.
Oh what fun lawyers must have
Fishy
You like that newstand analogy? Then get this. Mr Laurence Godfrey told the ISP three times they had libelous materials on their servers. They did nothing, so he sues. Thats kind of like telling a newstand owner several times that one of his magazines contains kiddie porn If he continues to sell it, he IS liable for his actions. I know nothing of British law, but what Mr Godfrey is doing sounds reasonable.
That's probably true as long as the ISP has no knowledge of the material. If you're an ISP, and I post illegal material to your web server, and you know about it, you could be liable.
Not being able to do something is no excuse for not doing everything you can. If Demon took no action after complaints, they could very well be liable.
If he wins, it's not pathetic; it's a source of income. He's got to eat and pay rent after all; otherwise he might starve or freeze to death.
I think this case also brings up an interesting question about the roots of the Internet (being in the U.S.) and our values vs. those of our overseas neighbors.
Clearly, the Internet was designed on the U.S. premise of free speech; this design may not fit well with other countries' laws and norms regarding free speech.
Is it reasonable to expect Demon to weed through gigs of postings on their servers to delete one message, just because one person complains? In the U.S. it's not. But, in the U.K. -- Maybe. That's one example where the Internet structure and design is clearly U.S. centric. And this problem seems to be a thorn that all foreign ISPs will have to deal with, eventually.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
The problem with this is that a typical ISP is likely to receive thousands of 'reasonable requests' if this is enforced. I might 'reasonably request' that a particularly nasty example of pornography was removed. You might 'reasonably request' that a particularly offensive example of bad language was removed. And so on and so on.
At the end of the day, some poor newsadmin would end up having to wade through a mass of "reasonable requests" and having to make a Judgement of Legality about each posting. Dangerous - if you get (say) 10000 "reasonable requests" per day, and guess wrong 1% of the time, and 1% of the offended parties decide to sue... you end up spending so much time in court that when your news server falls over you aren't there to bring it back up and - Hey! - the problem is solved!
Do you fancy doing this job? If so, apply to Demon for the job of newsadmin...