Slashdot Mirror
ISP Liability for Content - Demon.uk Case
mdmbkr wrote to us with the BBC coverage of the current legal situation surrounding Demon.co.uk. Demon has dropped an intended appeal against a libel ruling, in which the British High Court had made ISP's responsible for "any defamatory material they know they are carrying, irrespective of where it originated." Demon has decided to re-driect its' efforts to shaping legislation currently being shaped in Parliament.
All this crap is happening in all industrialised nations all around this big mud ball. The only solution is to vote for smart people instead of those old law-students...
From the Net.Legends.FAQ:
He's a legend now undoubtedly.Last-modified: 9/13/94
My advice: ignore him.
ms
This might be appropriate for content published
on ISP systems by trackable users. But when a
complaining party only has a fairly anonymous
email address (user@isp.com) then the ISP must get
involved somehow. It's the only place where a
possible party can complain.
The matter of liability on content are unmistakingly connected to the privacy and/or
anonimity of the ISP's user. There are various
drafts and reports on these matters. The draft
of the new European e-commerce guidelines, but
also the WIPO has just released a raport that
also mentions anonimity etc. (http://wipo2.wipo.int)
Leto
This could be another Slashdot item... I'm sick of all these rules here in the Netherlands, could someone offer me a job in a country that doesn't have such stupid regulation laws? First they wanted to ban crypto, then they wanted to introduce 'rekening-rijden' (paying for something that's already paid for) and now this. I can add the recent lobby for unique car registration using computer chips, I wonder when our government will monitor all our movements...
Here is the text of an email I have received at 20:30 British Summer Time from Demon Limited.
PRESS RELEASE
11th. June 1999
Demon Internet champions freedom of speech
on the Internet
Laurence Godfrey v Demon Internet court case STILL to be heard
Demon Internet continues its campaign in the interests of Internet
users to ensure freedom of speech and an appropriate legal framework
moving forwards. It has not conceded in the court case brought by
Laurence Godfrey and is committed to fight this and any such action.
A number of recent reports mistakenly interpreted the decision not to
lodge an appeal on a specific point in the defence as the conclusion to
the libel case brought by Laurence Godfrey against Demon. No conclusion
in the case has been reached, and Demon Internet is still strongly
committed to fighting the case.
According to David Furniss, Director of Demon Internet, "We have in no
way changed our stance, and are extremely confident of winning the case
against Dr Laurence Godfrey."
In advance of the full trial, judgments have been given by Mr Justice
Morland to determine the basis of both the plaintiff's and defendant's
positions.
In his latest judgment (23 April), Mr Justice Morland allowed a
substantial amendment to the defence, recognising Dr Godfrey's documented
provocative conduct, stating: "It could well be submitted that these
postings are puerile, unseemly and provocative. In effect, they invite
vulgar and abusive response. As Mr Barca (Demon's legal counsel) put it
these postings are designed to tempt people to overstep the mark and
defame the Plaintiff so that he can sue."
Elsewhere the judge said:
"It may also be helpful to suggest that on the basis of the proposed
Amended Defence any award of damages to the Plaintiff is likely to be
very small."
In a previous judgment, Mr Justice Morland had stated that Demon Internet
could not use a defence of 'innocent distribution' within its case and it
was upon this specific point that an appeal might have been made. This
defence was provided by the Defamation Act 1996 which was intended to
provide some protection for ISPs.
Furniss continued: "The latest judgment made by Mr Justice Morland is
very positive. His previous decision that Demon in this case, could not
use the defence of innocent distribution, within the 1996 Defamation Act,
is not material to us achieving success in this case. It must also be
stressed that on this point, the Judge made a 'First Instance' decision
which is not binding and leaves the way open for other Judges to take a
different view in future."
Although the interpretation had implications for the Internet industry
should ISPs not be able to use the defence of 'innocent distribution' in
subsequent cases, Demon has always maintained that it is absolutely
imperative that the issue of content liability is appropriately addressed
within impending UK E-Commerce legislation.
In its recommendations to the government relating to the e-commerce bill,
Demon argues that the draft EU directive on electronic commerce, which
gives protection to intermediaries against liability, should be included
within the UK legislation.
The government has also recognised the importance of this legislation and
correctly establishing the ISPs responsibility, as it has prioritised the
passage of the e-commerce bill through Parliament. The outcome of which
should finally determine the issue of content liability.
Furniss stated: "Demon is absolutely committed to championing the rights
of Internet users, and ensuring that the benefits of e-commerce can be
realised by UK businesses. The imperative for Demon in its role as an
industry leader is to focus on working with government and the EU to
ensure clear and sensible recognition of an ISPs liabilities within the
forthcoming E-Commerce Bill."
Note to editors:
Demon Internet - Founded in June 1992, Demon Internet is the pioneer of
low-cost flat rate Internet connectivity in the UK and the Netherlands for
both business and home users. As well as offering standard dial-up
services, Demon Internet offers a comprehensive range of business services
including business dial-up and network dial-up for small to medium-sized
businesses and a leased-line solution for corporates. Web hosting is
offered by Demon Internet who are the fourth largest web hosting business
in the world. Technical support is provided, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
free of charge to every user. In May 1998 Demon Internet was acquired by
ScottishTelecom, the telecom subsidiary of ScottishPower PLC.
For further information please contact:
Colin McSeveny or Ann Hood at ScottishPower Press Office
Tel 0141 248 8200
Fax 0141 636 4579
Demon Internet Press Office
Tel 0181 371 3711
--
Malcolm S. Muir Demon Internet Ltd.
Sunderland 322 Regents Park Road
England London N3 2QQ
Well you see:
1. The US has libel laws as well. Libel (as well as slander) do not qualify as "protected speech."
2. The US also has laws governing the usage of "fighting words," a catagory in which your comment certainly may fall. Bear this in mind.
3. The UK has freedom of speech (essentially in the same sense that we in the US have it) as well. It's not in a "constitution" like ours, but we have constitutional supremacy and they have parlamentary supremacy, so it equates to essentially the same thing.
God save the Queen!
-- r . m o s q u i t o --
You said that BT and other telcos are exempt being classed as service providers, well what does ISP actually stand for anyway?? Not Internet Stuff Publisher! I agree that is it totally crazy to hold ISP in the same position as newspapers... They don't publish, flippin' heck, this is just too crazy for words... Though admittedly if a post is sent that is disagreed with by someone and that someone informs the ISP with headers, the ISP would be able to process a cancel for it, which would eventually filter through, this is the best thing I could think they could do/could have done...
Demon produced a press release on the 11th saying that the case was still going on:
p l/pr/1999/pr1999-06-11a.html
http://www.dispatches.demon.net/cgi-bin/framer.
PRESS RELEASE
11th. June 1999
Demon Internet champions freedom of speech
on the Internet
Laurence Godfrey v Demon Internet court case STILL to be heard
Demon Internet continues its campaign in the interests of Internet
users to ensure freedom of speech and an appropriate legal framework
moving forwards. It has not conceded in the court case brought by
Laurence Godfrey and is committed to fight this and any such action.
A number of recent reports mistakenly interpreted the decision not to
lodge an appeal on a specific point in the defence as the conclusion to
the libel case brought by Laurence Godfrey against Demon. No conclusion
in the case has been reached, and Demon Internet is still strongly
committed to fighting the case.
According to David Furniss, Director of Demon Internet, "We have in no
way changed our stance, and are extremely confident of winning the case
against Dr Laurence Godfrey."
In advance of the full trial, judgments have been given by Mr Justice
Morland to determine the basis of both the plaintiff's and defendant's
positions.
In his latest judgment (23 April), Mr Justice Morland allowed a
substantial amendment to the defence, recognising Dr Godfrey's documented
provocative conduct, stating: "It could well be submitted that these
postings are puerile, unseemly and provocative. In effect, they invite
vulgar and abusive response. As Mr Barca (Demon's legal counsel) put it
these postings are designed to tempt people to overstep the mark and
defame the Plaintiff so that he can sue."
Elsewhere the judge said:
"It may also be helpful to suggest that on the basis of the proposed
Amended Defence any award of damages to the Plaintiff is likely to be
very small."
In a previous judgment, Mr Justice Morland had stated that Demon Internet
could not use a defence of 'innocent distribution' within its case and it
was upon this specific point that an appeal might have been made. This
defence was provided by the Defamation Act 1996 which was intended to
provide some protection for ISPs.
Furniss continued: "The latest judgment made by Mr Justice Morland is
very positive. His previous decision that Demon in this case, could not
use the defence of innocent distribution, within the 1996 Defamation Act,
is not material to us achieving success in this case. It must also be
stressed that on this point, the Judge made a 'First Instance' decision
which is not binding and leaves the way open for other Judges to take a
different view in future."
Although the interpretation had implications for the Internet industry
should ISPs not be able to use the defence of 'innocent distribution' in
subsequent cases, Demon has always maintained that it is absolutely
imperative that the issue of content liability is appropriately addressed
within impending UK E-Commerce legislation.
In its recommendations to the government relating to the e-commerce bill,
Demon argues that the draft EU directive on electronic commerce, which
gives protection to intermediaries against liability, should be included
within the UK legislation.
The government has also recognised the importance of this legislation and
correctly establishing the ISPs responsibility, as it has prioritised the
passage of the e-commerce bill through Parliament. The outcome of which
should finally determine the issue of content liability.
Furniss stated: "Demon is absolutely committed to championing the rights
of Internet users, and ensuring that the benefits of e-commerce can be
realised by UK businesses. The imperative for Demon in its role as an
industry leader is to focus on working with government and the EU to
ensure clear and sensible recognition of an ISPs liabilities within the
forthcoming E-Commerce Bill."
Well, I saw this on the BBC site when it appeared, and my heart sank.. In our situation, a user has to inform the already-busy abuse desk, the abuse desk ( who really hates doing abuse duties ) has to inform the MD ( who actually has a fairly major role in content issues in the UK ), who has to decide if the content is libellous, who then has to inform whoever's responsible for the service the content is on to remove the content. Thus we've involved at least three people, all busy, in a matter that they have had no direct influence over *at all*. I don't buy the isp-as-publisher line: however despite being in the industry for several years I've yet to decide quite what our role is. I'm more inclined to take the view that the individual is the publisher, and the one who should be the target of a libel action, and the ISP is the mechanism.. after all, do we sue printing presses for libellous newspaper articles?
:( I have little hope in any government legislation: the current incumbents have shown a spectacularily random approach to internet matters.
Thankfully the UK has resisted a lawsuit culture to some extent, but if this takes off stand by for a decrease in service while everyone's tied up dealing with the fallout
By this argument I should be able to sue the telephone company if all I know about somebody is their phone number.
A court order to the ISP should reveal the billing information and then the injured party can sue the person who owns the account that caused damage.
The carrier of information should not be responsible for anything except the delivery of information at a specified bandwidth.
AFAIAA, we dont have any real freedom of speech here in the UK. The Queen has banned books about her that she didnt like in the past and still has the power to do so now AFAIK. Whilst anyone has that sort of power in a country, the country cannot be said to have freedom of speech.
Nick
Nick
You are certainly very creative, linking these issues together.
Keep your feeble political views out of the bandwidth of people who are fortunate enough not to understand what the hell you are talking about.
Is this law posted on some page, we could demand they remove their own law!
Come on Mr. Godfrey, you bullying son of a bitch! Try to sue me in the USA, where we have freedom of speech.
Damned good thing we overthrew our king, isn't it?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, this isn't correct. News postings may be publishings by the poster, but they're certainly not publishings by the ISP. There is no way in hell that any ISP, let alone one the size of demon.co.uk could possibly scan all its outgoing news articles.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why not set initial posting level to an average of the final rating of the users previous posts?
This comment rating system is utterly, wonderfully, superlatively fantastic though! I love it! Now I actually read the comments on /. and frequently find them more interesting than the original articles :-)
Andrew.
Does anybody know the current state of them? I'm sure that we have legislation banning such inflamatory racial remarks as his about "Thai girls"... (though I think that they are criminal)
John_Chalisque
The question here is: Should a carrier remove the service or availability of service to a user on the grounds of alleged libel?
:)
Once a newspaper has been printed, it's around for a while; a retraction may be printed, but the publisher is not required to withdraw the millions of copies in circulation. But it requires a court order to have the retraction printed.
If I phone the telephone company up and accuse you of making nuisance phone calls to me, will they withdraw your phone service immediately, or will they wait for a court order?
The issue here is: Should ISPs be required to monitor all content made available through their service. Is an ISP, bulletin board or online service, responsible for the operation of their servers or the content held thereon.
Operating my own FidoNet BBS some 8-10 years ago, I was hard pressed to keep up with all of the incoming (and outgoing!) fidonet posts.
So I think it's unreasonable to consider an electronic media carrier as responsible for the 'posting'. Where they should fall liable is on the enactment of legal requirements; Demon were certainly not in a position to judge whether the material was libellous or not, and should not be required to make such judgements.
And a formal notification is not a legal notification.
As a note; the worst thing about this case is that, if Demon have any sense, their most poignant comments and remarks on this case will remain unposted
Oliver
No, it's not relevant at all to issues of anonymity and privacy, because a common carrier does not deal with content whereas anonymity and privacy are entirely to do with content.
You're copnfusing all that legal nonsense with fundamental properties of Internet carriage. The two are not the same, and it is only the desire of traditional institutions to bring the Internet under their tightly controlled umbrella that attempts to make them the same when they aren't.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm guessing that under UK law such a disclaimer wouldn't protect the ISP. You might be able to word it so the ISP can go after the original poster (assuming it was posted via that same ISP) to recover any damages they are forced to pay out. But the ISP still counts as 'publisher', so it's libel for what gets 'published' via its systems.
The UK isn't very hot on signing away responsibilties on things. Disclaimers often have no actual legal standing, and are just used (when it gets to the courts) to demonstrate intent.
I'd think that an ISP is a common carrier, or as close to a common carrier as is possible. While a telephone call doesn't stay in the system as long as a usenet post, I don't think that speed is the defining factor. After all, what about snailmail?
What's more, if Demon takes the responsibility of starting to censor, it's forced to continue to censor at every opportunity; they give up the defense of being a common carrier. Can you imagine facing obscenity charges for every post to alt.sex.stories? No doubt they're itching to be laid. Demon has no choice but to act as if were a common carrier or be once and totally screwed.
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
I am curious:
If someone is libeled by the BBC, they have to place a complaint which is processed by a board/commission who choose whether to uphold the complaint or not.
Many libraries keep newspaper archives, which are in effect respositories of libelous statements.
In these cases, the libraries are not required to purge their stock of libellous statements, and the newspaper is not required to retrieve or withdraw their publication, simply to publish a retraction.
And what about the poor guy who's account had to be suspended because he posted a DejaNews URL referring to an article with some background on the subject?!?
In fact, I think, hope, DejaNews is seriously considering it's position now.
>This is like suing the phone company because I said something about someone else I didn't like over a phone conversation.
It would be closer to a situation to where you were subjected to abusive phone calls, you complained to your phone company, and they refused to take any action on they grounds that they can't control what phone users say. And then you took a case against them for taking no action.
Personally, I think the initial action (that of complaining to Demon about a alleged libelous posting) was the wrong one to take, for two reasons (IANAL, etc.)
a) I don't think it was libelous, as AFAICS, the initial posting was forged to be from the poster, and expressed nasty opinions which were not about the author. This, I believe, would be more accurately classed as a "fraud", not a libel (any lawyers care to comment?)
b) Since the original posting was forged, the poster could have simply complained to demon about a forged posting, and Demon would have acted. A fraudlent posting is against their AUP, and I believe they could have cancelled the posting, and kicked out the offender, because their judgement would not be based on content. Their AUP is against abuse *of* the internet, not abuse *on* the internet.
Why the original poster didn't either cancel the posting himself, or get demon to do on his behalf (on the grounds it was forged, not libellious) and post an explaination on the same news group, I don't know. IMO, it would have come across a lot better to say "someone forged an posting from me, I have notified the ISP involved and action will be taken" rather than yell at the ISP "libel!" and go to the courts when they refuse (quite rightly too, IMO) to act on the grounds of content.
However, this is now a moot issue, and Demon have been found liable for an alleged libelous posting, and it does set a particular nasty precedent, that you can complain to an ISP about the content of a posting, and get the posting pulled. What happens I someone gets a posting of mine cancelled, and I complain to my ISP that the cancelling of that article causes me damage (eg I am replying contradicting stuff said about me) How should the ISP react? Cancel? Not cancel?
I think Demon are doing the best thing in the circumstance, by not taking it any further, as precedents could be set if the case went against them as in the lower courts.
I hope that the laws going through the court recognise the unique situations of ISP's, being somewhere between a common carrier, and a publisher. They are a common carrier, insofar as they shouldn't be held liable for what a customer says, but a publisher in the fact that unlike a phone company, what is say is stored, and propagated by them, after the fact.
It's a fine line between allowing the ISP to cancel/remove what it should be able to (spam, obvious illegal material) and forcing them to censor content and act on the complaint of one person.
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
I used to run a small BBS myself, and I resented being responsible for what my users said. Some of the comments posted in echos (I was on FidoNet) brought shame and ridicule to everyone on my board, especially me.
However, I wound up needing to police my users. Unfortunately, it appears that ISP's will need to do the same thing to avoid people putting all of their users in their killfiles. (I know a few people who have all AOL users in USENET killfiles, for instance.)
It all goes to show that a few bad users can ruin the rep of any ISP. I think it's the ISP's good-faith requirement to suspend or delete accounts of bad users, but I don't know if a law making such behavior mandatory is necessary. Any ISP that wouldn't suspend a user that crossposts a pyramid-scheme solicitation to 5,000,000 people won't conform to the law anyway.
For more information, click here.
I personally think that this is ridicilous. It should NOT be the isp's fault for someone else's content. That is like holding the a state or town responsible for something that one person/home does. Punish the actual offender, not the host.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
This is like suing the phone company because I said something about someone else I didn't like over a phone conversation.
If this becomes any sort of legal precedent, then I will go right out and sue my own phone company for libel when all my friends talk about me behind my back.
As if it's any more of a tribute to the world's messed up legal systems, I also love how Demon was caught in a lawsuit vs. AOL over the name "Number One ISP." Funny, the court ruled in favor of AOL even though AOL isn't even an ISP...
IANAL, but I think that, as nhw said, the law as it stands considers news postings as being published by the ISP. Until the law is changed so that ISPs are classed as telecommunication suppliers (or whatever the correct term is) issues such as this will continue to crop up.
As far as I know, BT and other telcos are not at risk from being sued because they are classed as service providers, and are just the access point for people. ISPs do this now, and I assume Demon are going to press for ISPs to be put in the same league.
However, I am not sure what the legal situation is if, e.g. somebody keeps getting harassing phone calls and BT does nothing about it. I would think that BT would be legally required to put a stop to it somehow. If ISPs were put in the same boat, and somebody kept posting defamatory articles, then I would imagine Demon would have to cancel the account. Which would be the correct thing to do.
I think that Demon are doing the right thing by dismissing this and pressing for ISPs to have more rights.
Since slashdot is hosting our comments here, does the 'we do not hold ourselves responcible...' still hold true? in a way slashdot is the 'isp' (read carier) for all these comments, etc ... more so for dejanews maybe?
man this situation is gonna get real messy real fast if thats the way things are going
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
That's like making our Baby Bells responsible for the idiots who phone in bomb threats, car makers responsible for stalkers' choice of transportation, and paper companies responsible for the crimes of libelers (your lie is worth the paper it's printed on).
No individual is ever responsible for their actions, the medium that is used to convey their stupidities is responsible. After all, the ISP has more bucks than some moron.
Viva deep pockets!
What does the High Court expect ISPs to do, sniff all their traffic and not let it pass through the routers before it hits the net, if it was deemed libelous? This would be hilarious if AOL was the ISP being sued. Either watch every single person and make sure they don't ``misuse'' the internet or pay for what you let them say? Ouch!
Good move for Demon to concentrate on fixing Parliament. And they even said that it would apply to ANY traffic that it was carrying, even if it wasn't from a customer! So the big wigs actually DO know that ISPs don't just carry customer traffic, and they STILL want ISPs to be responsible for anything passing through their hardware. This is just hilarious...
Don't forget about pbi.net who my connection passes through as well.
Good thing I can post as an Anonymous Coward or I may have a subpeona in my inbox tomorrow.
OK, we know that he's the character who brought the defamation suit against Demon, and he claims to be a scientist of some sort (physics? computer science?) and a lecturer in London. I've done a number of searches for him, wondering what he might have published, where he might work, where he might have gone to school, etc., and I can't find any reference to his academic work, publications, etc. As far as the Internet is concerned, his sole claim to fame appears to have been filing lawsuits after having been flamed. I find it surprising that a serious academic, especially in computer science, would not be mentioned on the web for some professional activity. Is there any evidence to suggest that he's actually some lofty personage with a reputation to defame rather than some bum who wants to become rich over having been flamed? If he actually did have a professional reputation, I should think he would have blown it with this money-grubbing lawsuit (not the only one he brought, either). He doesn't need anyone to defame his character; he does a thoroughly sufficient job by himself.
Judging from the first few comments here, it looks like quite a few people are failing to grasp what actually happened here...
You might want to check out my posting here if you want a semi-legal insight.
-- O improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!
Waawaa, he hurt my feelings with what he said. Did the posting really ruin the guys reputation or just get a few people to laugh at him? Did it cause him to lose business or not get a job? Just glad you guys can see how the law can get twisted. And it can happen in _your_ backyard.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
This is will get out of hand and unwieldly in a hurry. If an ISP is liable for any material that a user makes public if they're aware of it then unless they make it policy that employees don't ever look at that ISP's 'output' and keep the complaints department on strong mind altering substances they can be sued for anything. Web pages are easy: yank the page and possibly yank the account of the user who did the page. What about more permanent things such as news postings? They're potentially archived out of their jurisdiction. I don't know how affirmitively DejaNews would respond to requests from a British ISP to remove potentially defamatory posts. There are many similar storage mechanisms such as guest books, free web sites etc.
"By using this ISP, I agree to take full personal responsibility for any obscene or libellous material I post within it's domain. In the case that the material personally posted by myself or a dependent is libellous and is pursued by the authorities, I hereby relieve the ISP of all responsibility for these actions."
Most ISP usage agreements (or at least the ones I've seen anyway) already have similar clauses, here in the U.S. My lack of any law education though tells me that I have no clue if it holds water. The best publishing-related analogy I can think of is a magazine company saying "Our editors are not responsible, all we do is print words on paper. Our authors are responsible for their content."
I was also sued by Godfrey a while back. The character is nothing but a flame baiter. Just like the kid back in school who would mouth off to others, and then cry to the teacher when someone gave him back a dose of his own BS.
Demon, most likely, did not bother appealing because the British court allowed into evidence samples of some of his own postings to usenet, which clearly show what an ass he can be. He posts to uk.legal from time to time these days, offering articulate advice and commentary; but Demon was smart enough to dig beneath the surface and exposed him for what he really is, something which no one else had either the time or resources to do, myself included. Their damages, if any, in this case, would be minimal, so there is no point to them pursuing it. You should check out http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey3.htm for more info and a sample of Larry's better works.
Godfrey has used the British libel laws (which are heavily in favor of the plaintiff) to harass countless people, many of whom settle out of court for a few thousand bucks, just to make him go away. The smart ones have just ignored him, especially those out of the UK court jurisdiction.
The only frigtening implication will be if this leads to a climate where everyone must censor themselves and follow the lowest common legal denominator.
Unless you have a history of following up on such threats, they are hardly going to take a great deal of notice.
.gov.uk pages, that would at least avoid pissing off the people who supply us with net access.
The fact that Godfrey has sued makes threats from him rather more belivable.
Anyway, would it not be better to do this with
I realize that the Demon case is in the UK but I think that the case is also pertinent to US law. After posting my original comment, I dug around a bit and found out that there are provisions in US laws that cover libel and and removal of libelous material. In hindsight, this was previously discussed here.
/.) are safe as along as they make a good faith effort to remove the libelous material after being notified. So you folks in the UK need something like the CDA. However, you might want to modify some aspects of this law.;-)
Ironically, the law is the infamous Communications Decency Act (CDA). Go figure. The CDA contains a clause called the Good Samaritan provision. Sites like Yahoo and AOL (and
IANAL, but one could argue that moderation represents a good faith effort to screen offensive material. However, -1 level comments are still accessible.
Sorry for the scare Rob. I think that you are safe except for the bit about receiving a subpoena for turning over your logs (the Raytheon and Yahoo case).
craw
This is the same British High Court who dropped most of the charges against Pinochet, because they decided he had "Sovereign Immunity." They'd probably give Adolph Hilter and Milosevich have Sovereign Immunity too.
Godfrey has been known as a kook over at soc.culture.thai for a LONG time. Not so long ago he was posting stories about a King Brian (of goldfish, no less) who murdered his brother. It was a thinly veiled attack on the present King of Thailand whose brother was murdered back in the 1940's. In Thailand they still have (and enforce) laws concerning "lese majesty". Thais don't sue...they tend to show their anger "physically". I *don't* think he visits Bangkok very often :^)
He's a kook who has influence only because of idiotic British laws. Screw him.
This discussion seems to be spreading massive disinformation.
/. is hosted in the US. Someone in the UK trying to apply their law to a posting on /. is up a creek. US law applies to Slashdot. OTOH, a case could be made under US law that /. is a publisher of at least some of the material. If Rob gets a complaint that a posting on his system is libellous, he's got to take that serious and at least investigate and yank the posting if that is likely. (Note to self: replace prior sentance with actual legal opinion.)
Scanning Usenet Postings: The ruling does not require Demon or anyone to scan Usenet postings for potentially damaging information. When they recieve a complaint that they are currently carring a defamitory posting, they need to remove it from their servers. They don't need to remove it from servers woldwide. In fact, if the victim of the forgery is a customer of theirs (as was in this case, I believe) I think that they have an obligation to help him send out a cancel for the message if he can't do it himself for whatever reason.
Web Postings: This is not a web case. Certainly Demon can't be held responsible for web pages hosted elsewhere. There is nothing in the ruling which would suggest thatthey are. For pages hosted by Demon, they will probably have to at least investigate complaints of libel on pages they host. This is potentially chilling if I can get a web page pulled just be claiming that I am being defamed by it.
Slashdot:
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Heh, law school is an enlightening experience.
If as reported Demon acknowledged the libellious nature of third-party material held on their servers then they have only themselves to blame.
They should never have examined the material in the first place, and they should have returned the letter from Godfrey back to him with an explanation that issues of content are not entertained by Demon in their role as an Internet carrier. Then Godfrey's complaint would forever have remained no more than an allegation.
You can't both claim to be a common carrier and at the same time express an official opinion on the nature of the content. That's what the word "common" is all about, an expression of universality. Demon prejudiced their case by being responsive to an issue that should have been outside their jurisdiction. A true common carrier has to be oblivious to all issues except transit parameters. In the absence of any legal common carrier status, they should at least have acted like one.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Jon Katz and RMS are flaming idiots who secretly use MS Outlook Express to check their e-mail at their AOL accounts. They are obviously not nerds since they use both AOL and MS.
/. for all to read. Katz and RMS are incredibly offended by this as they do not use AOL and consider themselves nerds. Steve Case is offended that I have disparaged his fine company. Bill Gates calls out to his minions that he now wants my head on a platter.
/. content?
There, I just said here at
Comments are owned by the Poster.
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you.
Rob, I hate to raise this issue, but suing a ISP has relevance for this site. I may be wrong but some of the comments that are posted here may be interpreted as being rather inflammatory. This leads to the following questions.
1) Is your ISP responsible for the
2) Are you protected from our stupid comments?
3) Will you turn over your log files when the Man slaps you with a subpoena? Remember Raytheon?
4) There are court case related to posting links to libelous material. Do you have some policy with regard to this as we can include links in our comments?
5) Moderators control what is up and what is down. Can they be held accountable for their actions? You do have log files that document the actions of the moderators.
I feel like a real asshole right now for asking these questions. Please flame me if I'm wrong but I would hate to see bad things happen to you or to this site. One suggestion is to contact a group of legal eagles that would probably be willing to provide you with some info. I don't know if they are the right ppl but the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School might be a good place to start.
Just before I sent this in I checked the other comments and saw that chabotic raises similar concerns.
Off topic: Everybody's posting should start at the default level (0 or 1) unless they come from someone who is always -1.
It seems to me that most of these cases arise when people try and apply current law, in the main designed for printed material, to the internet. They don't seem to realise the implicit "transfer of trust" that occurs when you use a distributed naming and routing system. Hence I believe you can easily argue that while magazines (for example) could be held accountable for their content (since they explicity select or write it prior to publication) whereas ISP's cannot.
I'm not a great fan of censorship in any form, though I can tolerate it in a very limited degree (not that we have much choice these days). But I think most people will agree that cases like this are pretty absurd. If you are going to declare anyone responsible for a newsgroup posting, it should only ever be the author - and then the newsgroup moderator before the ISP. If it's an unmoderated newsgroup everyone's going to take it with a pinch of salt anyway. Oh but I forgot, that's attempting to apply common sense to the legal profession - we can't have that, we might actually have a FAIR legal system then, and obviously that would be completely out of order.
Here's hoping that Demon do manage to get the notion through Parliment's (seemingly incredibly dense) skulls that ISP's should not be held responsible.
---- Microsoft is not the answer, NO is the answer. Microsoft is the question
Now, technically, in English law, the act of serving an article from a news spool is publication.
Aye, here is the rub. That clearly should not be so. To me, serving the article from a server is more akin to *delivering* a newspaper rather than publishing it.
The major problem is that this ruling makes ISPs responsible for bits that pass through their wires. Every crackpot with an axe to grind can now pester ISPs to cancel postings he doesn't like. And I presume that the same logic can (and would) be applied to web sites.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
If you think the Demon UK case is bad, fear this.
In a case of Scientology vs Spaink and ISP's,
the judge ruled that, if "informed and the information is reasonably correct" an ISP becomes
responsible for not only the content of its users
pages, but also of hyperlinks of users. The judge
declared hyperlinks to be "publishing", resulting
in hyperlinks to hyperlinks having the same problem. There is now a Dutch precedent that
basicaly incriminates every ISP and content provider. For example, me posting a link to the
website in question (http://xenu.xtdnet.nl) would
now be incriminating to slashdot if it was under
Dutch juristiction.
Another very bad decision is the fact that for
"possible coyright infringement" or other suspected offenses, Dutch ISP's are now expected
to have to release the user's name and adres within 3 days.
Hopefully more information (in English) will
become available soon about this ruling. Keep an
eye on the newsgroup xs4all.general and the homepage of Spaink (www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink).
I'm no longer laughing at Australia, that's for
sure.
Leto (working for a Dutch ISP)
As this ruling took place in the UK (Which is completely populated with inbred twits anyway, so this really shouldn't be a surprise) it has no relevance here in the States.
/.? IANAL but I'd guess the answer to that would be that they'd have to add /. to their packet filters (Greatly reducing the number of inbred twits posting) or risk being sued by some other inbred twits (Like Laurence Godfrey.)
However, if someone were to post something defamatory (Say, claiming that the entire country is full of inbred twits?) could Demon be sued for the content on
If the ISPs were to remove all services other than the internet connection, that might do the trick. Sorry, you can't get E-mail from us -- someone might send you something libelous. Sorry, we don't offer a news server. Here are some commercial services in the States who will happily sell you a feed. Sorry, we can't host your web pages, someone might put something libelous up. Thank the lawyers and Laurence Godfrey for the trouble.
Something similar happened in France recently. The story involved altern.org, a free web hosting server (30000 sites, IIRC) which had been closed by a court because of the publication of nude pictures of a TV celebrity and altern's owner had to pay a pretty big amount of money. A support campaign was lanched and gathered ~ $5000 (a lot lesser than the amend requested by the court). After several weeks of interruption, an agreement has been settled between altern's owner and the celeb. Altern finally gave the $5000 to the girl and reopened his site.
This story pointed out the gap between French justice's way of thinking and the reality of the Internet. I hope this will change on the future.
Sorry for my poor english. Happy Slashdotting !
gdon
In the UK, delivering a newspaper which you knew to contain defamatory remarks would indeed be illegal. Yes, our libel laws really do allow the libelled party to go after the distributors, if the distributors know that they are distributing libellous material.
See http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2 .htm for more details.
IANAL, but I can at least read the facts of the case; I would urge other posters to do likewise.
I addressed the question about nuisance complaints in another posting. We had a similar fuss in this country about obscenity on Usenet a year or two back; it's long since been something of a non-question, thanks to the efforts of the IWF. All we need now is a similar structure for dealing with claims of libel (and if done right it will benefit both ISPs and victims of libel).
shape shape shap shape
BTW, out of interest, what does the fact that Britain is a monarchy and the US is a republic have to do with the case in hand?
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
I suggest that we contact all the ISPs in the UK and notify them of the libellous information that they have on their OWN homepage, or the homepages of the companies for which they provide bandwidth.
;-)
They are now required to remove that information without a chance to protest the fact that the statement is true or not.
My guess is that this will get a point across.
Regards,
Roger Wolff.
------------sample letter follows-----------------
Dear ISP,
As of today, I consider your homepage (http://www.ISP.co.uk/) slander against my person. I therefore request you to take the appropriate action: remove that page from your homepage.
I would find it acceptable if you would replace the page with:
"We've been informed that our homepage contains slanderous material, and requested to remove that information from our homepage. Due to the recent court decision, we have to comply with this request, without questioning its validity.
Please help us get this stupid situation reversed. [URL to page explaining possible actions that UK residents can use to help the new law]
Thank you.
ISP.
(for normal business, [to the old homepage])
"
J. R. Slashdot-reader.