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Internet Service Providers Not Liable for Content

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-for-some-bad-for-others dept.

biodork writes " A bout of sanity in the courts. Prodigy is NOT responsible for defamatory material sent over its network. Further, they may not be responsible for the material posted in their bulletin boards." This case has been kicking around since 1994. Finally a real, clear-cut, precedent-setting decision.

3 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. From the other point of view... by Gurlia · · Score: 4

    It's all fine and dandy now that at least one court realizes that ISP's only act as carriers, and are not responsible for the content transmitted through them. Great, this is nice for us privacy freaks and all that.

    But still, from the other point of view, you still haven't really solved the problem. All this proves is that you can't make ISPs trace info so that you can track down abusers. But I'm just wondering, supposing privacy concerns become priority in the future -- meaning no one is legally allowed to monitor our Net activities, store personal info, and strong encryption becomes the norm. This is all great for privacy-aware users like us. But what about people who abuse it? Is there some way to both preserve our privacy, yet not make it impossible to track down abusers when it's necessary? Or will privacy necessarily entail the impossibility of tracking down Net criminals?

    Maybe some people think, forget about the abusers, as long as we have our privacy. But this is like saying, forget about robbers, let's just make sure the police have no rights to search our belongings and we'll be happy. Then how would you mete out justice to robbers? This doesn't solve the problem, it only (rather foolishly) ignores it. How about on the Net? Can privacy be preserved yet at the same time it's possible to do something about Net crime?

    --
    mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
  2. As it should be. by shirro · · Score: 4

    The trouble is that governments don't want the Internet to be judged by the same rules as telephone and mail.

    They view it as a threat to internal security because it promotes true democracy. So they will introduce legislation so that Judges don't have to think about common law rights and precedent.

    If you don't believe me, come to Australia. People elsewhere think our government is backward because of some recent policies - wrong - they are way ahead of the game.

    The Aus government has already figured out that the way to curb unbridled democracy is to have ISPs running scared over draconian content laws and then to have a politically controlled internal security organisation (read secret police) legally authorized to hack into said ISPs (or any one else) and to change data on their computers.

    Note that ASIO (the security org) is not answerable to a judge to get a warrant but to a political master. So if an someone hosts unsavoury political commentry that the government sees as a threat to national security (ie it threatens the government of the day or some political or economice interest) they can legally compromise the providers computers.

  3. Different governments still a problem. by pen · · Score: 4
    The French ISP Altern was found responsible for the content someone posted on its servers. The judge said that just like a newspaper is responsible for what people print in it, an ISP is responsible for the content others post on its servers. The Slashdot article is here

    I am not sure about the outcome of the case. Altern was down for quite a while, but is now back up. You now must provide an email address (that is confirmed) to open an account. There was a petition, and as the case was posted on Slashdot, quite a few people signed it. I do remember the ISP owner (it's a one-person operation, on a Linux server BTW) thanking everyone for the support.