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ISP Liability for Content - Demon.uk Case 80

Posted by Hemos from the redirecting-the-efforts dept.
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.
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ISP Liability for COntent - Demon.uk Case More

ISP Liability for COntent - Demon.uk Case

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  • I remember Godfrey about 8 years ago: he is the biggest flamer I ever encountered on Usenet (I regularly read soc.culture.german, where he called all germans nazis...), but as I see, he still is alive and honouring his reputation! :-)

    From the Net.Legends.FAQ:
    Last-modified: 9/13/94

    Laurence Godfrey:

    Found on soc.culture.canada and soc.culture.british.
    Contrib. post:
    For the uniniated, Laurence Godfrey is a british scientist who worked in Canada until he quit after a dispute with his boss (he is currently suing his former employers). Since that time, Godfrey has taken to posting on soc.culture.canada with insulting comments about Canada and canadians in general. Needless to say, he has generated a lot of flames.
    A few months back, several people posted comments to the effect that he was fired from his canadian job. "Libel!" cried Godfrey! Surprisingly, as of about a week ago (12/93), Godfrey claimed to have won out of court settlements from the academic institutions that these people attended. In the last few days, the thread has spiralled out of control - people doubting his claim (particularly the aspect of suing people in Canada from a British court) have called him a liar. His response to these people has been along the lines of: you'd better be careful what you say or: I am taking the necessary steps to deal with this person - basically implying that he will take legal action. A popular reply to this has been that Godfrey is purposely attracting "libelous" flames in order to make a quick buck.
    --
    He vehemently loathes Canada and anything Canadian. Or German. But he's not racist (he married a Thai [note: Filipino, actually]); he came to hate most foreigners after a great deal of thought. He also loves suing, and is perpetually threatening to sue for libel over the net. Look for his posts in soc.culture.british (or don't), and there was even at least one issue of the Godfrey Gazette containing some of his more xenophobic comments.
    >this might sound like a rather minor net.loon...
    Well, apart from his disturbing ability to capitalize correctly (they're the most dangerous ones), he does have all the correct attributes...
    He's a legend now undoubtedly.
    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
  • 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!
  • 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?

    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 :( I have little hope in any government legislation: the current incumbents have shown a spectacularily random approach to internet matters.
  • 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
  • First they wanted to ban crypto, then they wanted to introduce 'rekening-rijden' (paying for something that's already paid for) and now this.

    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.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • 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 :-)

  • 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)
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • >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.


    --
  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Give me a break.... (Score:3)

    by InfiniterX ( 12749 ) on Thursday June 10, 1999 @03:55PM (#1856051) Homepage
    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!"
  • kinda sounds like the head on the ground attitude of the Australian govts new censorship laws, doesn't it.

    When will politicians realise that they really have no idea of what is actually going on???

    C

  • Re:Give me a break.... (Score:4)

    by nhw ( 30623 ) on Thursday June 10, 1999 @04:19PM (#1856058) Homepage
    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.

    You can't sue for libel over a spoken conversation: you can only be libelled where the defamatory matter is published. At least in this jurisdiction (England/Wales).

    You could try suing for slander though. :-)

    The facts of the case are interesting. The plaintiff in the case informed Demon that they had libellous material (and it was not disputed at trial that the material was, in fact, libellous), but Demon didn't do anything about it.

    Now, technically, in English law, the act of serving an article from a news spool is publication. Since Demon knew that the article was potentially libellous, they couldn't avail themselves of the 'innocent publication' defence that is part of the 1996(? I should know this) Act.

    In terms of legal reasoning, the argument is pretty cut and dried.

    I would be very surprised that, had he not informed of the existence of the posting before suing, the plaintiff in this case would've succeeded before the court.

    Therefore, I don't think the ramifications of this case are as far reaching as some will no doubt prophesy. That's not to say that there aren't some important implications:

    1) The role of ISP as censor - from now on, if I see something on a newsgroup that I don't like, I can send out a note to all the ISPs in England asking them to remove it, or face a libel action. How many of them are going to take a stand and refuse to remove the article if they know that getting the call wrong means an expensive libel suit?

    2) If you think this is a bad thing, how _can_ you protect ISPs from this sort of thing, without 'breaking' a load of case law?

    Tough one.

  • Re:Who in blazes is Laurence Godfrey? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ooops. Now you've done it. He's going to sue Slashdot, UPNetworks and all of the users as well.


    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.

  • Makes you wonder if that little line on the bottom of /. really is worth anything. Does this actually protect the post carrier?

    One could argue that it's the responsibility of the host. If it provides the service, shouldn't it manage it? Parent's are responsible for their child's actions until a certain age.

    On the other hand, can it be considered abuse of a system such as a prank call using the phone companies lines? In that case, it is like a teen who is tried as an adult. The authority owning the service is bypassed and is tried directly.

    I would hope that it goes case by case in terms of how often the host lets it pass without some sort of delegation. To each his own...
    (All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-99 Rob Malda.)
    Anyone wanna buy this post? Maybe I can sell it to Rob....

    Some are men trying to be something they aren't. Some are men they aren't trying to be something.
    I'm just a man trying to be me
  • 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 [slashdot.org] if you want a semi-legal insight.

  • If the ISP had some sort of disclaimer upon signing up for service, such as:

    "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."

    I'm a yankee myself, but I'd be interested as to how the English law would deal with that.
  • If you look at the actual issue, the case you site is not equivilent -- Bomb threats, etc. don't stay around for longer than it takes to transmit them in the phone system, and are hard to remove. The case that this article references is different -- The guy sent them a formal notice of libelous material in their usenet feed, and showed that they did nothing in response. There is very little similarity in the things you bring up to this case.
  • 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, too, was sued by Godfrey (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10, 1999 @06:21PM (#1856068)
    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.
  • I don't think it's as bad as you think. In the case at hand, the article in question was a forgery and clearly defamatory; as such I can't imagine why an ISP would mind removing it once notified, and I find Demon's behaviour puzzling.

    The bulk of articles on Usenet are, in contrast, clearly not defamatory of anyone; and if someone tries to make a nuisance of themselves by threatening to sue, the result of ignoring them will be either (a) nothing or (b) a libel case which the ISP wins, plus a bankrupt nuisance.

    (Of course not all operators of news servers are in a position to defend themselves against a bogus libel action; but see my remarks below.)

    The important case of course is where it is not clear whether an article which is the subject of a complaint is defamatory. My suspicion is that these will be few in number - meaning that it's not going to be a large burden to call in a lawyer to check them over, and not too disastrous if occasionally an ISP errs on the side of caution.

    If this suspicion turns out to be wrong then clearly some alternative approach is needed. But the same laws have applied to newspapers and their distributors without destroying the industry; I don't see that there's any reason to believe they'll destroy the net in the UK either.

    That said - the high cost even of defending against legal action does mean that it can be too easy for the rich to abuse UK libel law to silence poorer critics, and I think this should be reformed. This is hardly a problem unique to Usenet however - so far it has been much more relevant to print media .
  • 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?

    No, not quite that bad. The ISP only becomes liable after being informed of the post in question. Up until that time it has the "innocent dissemination" defence.

    The problem, of course, is that if I see something on the Net I don't like, I can demand that the ISPs remove it. In theory the ISPs could determine that it is not libelous, and hence refuse to remove it. In practice they have no way of making this decision, and no motive to try. Their only real course of action in these circumstances is to remove the posting.

    The biggest problem is going to be postings which are damaging to reputation, but nevertheless are still true. The defence of truth to a charge of libel is a very important one, but it is the one that an ISP is least well placed to check.

    Paul.

  • Have a look at http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2 .htm [courtservice.gov.uk]. In particular see paragraphs 19 and 20.
  • This discussion seems to be spreading massive disinformation.

    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: /. 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.)
  • "Our editors are not responsible, all we do is print words on paper. Our authors are responsible for their content."

    The difference is that the editors of a magazine get to review every article that gets published (as a matter-of-fact) before the magazine ever hits the newsstands. With websites and newsgroups, however, libellous articles could be posted without the ISP's knowledge. They might catch it later, but it could be a while.

    An ISP might be better construed as a bulletin board at the local supermarket. Anyone can sneak up and put a sign that says "Bill Gates sucks goat droppings". The supermarket manager will catch it, but not before it's been up for at least a few hours. And probably not before it gathers a crowd or someone complains about it.

    From a legal standpoint, the cases might be identical, but from a logical perspective (something the law rarely is :D ) I see enormous differences between the two.
  • 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.

  • Rain on you parade, but (Score:4)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Thursday June 10, 1999 @06:51PM (#1856080) Homepage
    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.

    There, I just said here at /. 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.

    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 /. content?
    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.
  • ...over the name "Number One ISP." Funny, the court ruled in favor of AOL even though AOL isn't even an ISP...

    hmm... maybe thats because Judges usually hold their jobs for life, which means that an old guy could preside over a trial who doesn't know jack shit about the internet, other than "thats where the perverts go to look at naked women and try to defile my great-grandkids" so, they will beilieve that aol is an ISP.
  • Where "disclaimers" tend to fall over is in the legal concept of "duty of care", and similar stuff established over a few centuries of case law (at least in the UK, and also Australia and some other Commonwealth countries). Basically, once you have been made aware of a situation that has potential to cause a problem - in this case, libel - courts take a dim view if you ignore things.


    Another point not considered - just because I take exception to something said (posted / printed / published) about me - and I say "Hey, Mr ISP - that stuff in alt.stupid.wankers is libellous" - does that make it libellous, just because I think it is?
  • Does it make it libellous? If you are the authority of what constitutes it so. But enough about philosophy.
    As for law, I find it funny that any abuse of system causes people to look for a specific person, but in the case of this posting, the service is liable? Something sounds a bit backwards about this. Until there are percise laws about this, it is all open to interpretation by those judging.

    Demon is trying to take action by having the 'bad guys' sign statements that they will not act as such again. Until there are more percise laws written up about this type of thing, it can go either way. Not guilty because Demon tried or guilty because Demon didn't want to take off the 'bad post'.

    Notice that the offended don't go directly after them, if not including Demon.


    ---
    To Bugs: "He does have to shoot me now!"
    To Elmer: "So shoot me now!"
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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)

  • Please have a look at the actual details on the case.

    1). The case took place in the UK under UK law (/. is not in the UK).

    2). Demon were then informed that certain messages were held on their newspool which were slanderous. Someone would have to complain to Rob before the same situation could apply.

    As an asside does anyone know if any other UK ISP was asked to remove the offending articles from their feeds and if so what their response was?

    Paul
  • I'm a lawyer, but this is not legal advice, but a comment on the general principles involved. If you need advice on this matter, see a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction.

    If slashdot were completely unmoderated, it would probably have near-absolute protection under U.S. law. Individual posters would be liable, but the site would probably be something similar to a common carrier.

    If edited for content, though, The situation changes, at least somewhat. Once the task of editing out comments is undertaken, it must be done properly.

    However, moderartion on slashdot doesn't remove comments, but is a listing of opinions about the quality of the article. My gut feelign is that this would leave it in the first category of protection, but I'd really need to do some research to be certain. So unless someone wants to send a $5k retainer, I'm certainly not going to stand behind this first impression :)

    There is potential foreign liability, though: U.S. law can't protect a U.S. from being sued abroad. However, if a foreign jugdment wouldn't be much use without foreign assets to seize. THe judgment could be brought to the U.S., but a U.S. court would not enter the foreign judgment for actions taken in hte U.S. that are protected by U.S. law.
  • >>>
    Have a look at http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2 .htm. In particular see paragraphs 19 and 20.

    Yes. A defendent can establish under Section 1(1)(a) that they are categorically not the publisher of an article, and yet still must show that they "took reasonable care in relation to its publication" (1(1)(b)) and that they "had no reason to believe, that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement" (1(1)(c)).

    If you're not a publisher, then you shouldn't have to take any care in relation to the publication of something. If you're not a publisher, you don't cause or contribute to the publication.

    In short, if 1(1)(a) applies, then I can't see how 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) can possible be part of the discusssion.

    The law appears to remain an ass.

    However, I'm still arguing from the point of view of common sense, not a legal background...

    Tim.
  • 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 !

  • 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 [courtservice.gov.uk] 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 [iwf.org.uk]. 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).

  • 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) still apply because publication involves many people other than the publisher. For example in the case of a newspaper then it may involve a printing company, a distributor, and many newsagents. In the case of a Usenet posting, it involves the ISPs that carry the posting.

    If you distribute a libelous document then your actions have caused damage to the victim that would not have occurred had you not done so. So, the act makes it possible to sue someone who knowingly does this.

    Note that it could easily be much stricter - it could make it possible to sue people even if they are unknowingly responsible for the distribution of libelous material. Then Usenet would really be impossible in the UK - but so would snailmail; traditionally the postman doesn't open letters before delivering them.

    I don't have any kind of legal background.

  • Could you explain to me how freedom of speech protects you from libel lawsuits? Libel is not protected speech - if you call Laurence Godfrey a degenerate monkeyfister or even a 'bullying son of a bitch', and a US court decides he isn't, the court will convict you of libel and you'll pay the consequences. And I can guarantee that the damages awarded by a US court will be MUCH more than that awarded by an English court.

    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

  • 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.
  • The defamatory messages were (I think) posted in Canada, obviously from a completely different service provider.

    Demon were just carrying the messages as they spread round the world.

    So forcing liability to users of demon internet would not stop or solve the problem of libellous posts.
  • Problem is that messages can be posted from anywhere in the world, and from any ISP. Demon do not have any juristriction over these majority of posters.

    Most harassing calls do not come from overseas because of the cost, but on the internet the cost to post overseas is exactly the same as posting in your own country.
  • BT are legally liable to put a stop to nuisance calls if they continue, but they are not liable for the content of those calls - if this case result were applied in the telecoms industry, BT would be liable if someone rang up someone else and told them lies about you.

    Usenet is a steaming morass of defamation, and if someone were determined to post such things, and knew that if they did it would be the ISP and not them held liable, how is this ruling going to stop it?
    --
  • >>>
    The facts of the case are interesting. The plaintiff in the case informed Demon that they had libellous material (and it was not disputed at trial that the material was, in fact, libellous), but Demon didn't do anything about it.

    Now, technically, in English law, the act of serving an article from a news spool is publication. Since Demon knew that the article was potentially libellous, they couldn't avail themselves of the 'innocent publication' defence that is part of the 1996(? I should know this) Act.

    This is, IMHO, where the law is an ass. Serving an article from a news spool is *not* publishing, any more than serving an html file, image, sound file or anything else from a web cache is.

    Demon are doing the Right Thing by letting this one drop rather than throwing money into a bottomless legal pit, and instead pressing for the law to be changed to take account of what ISPs actually do.

    If you follow the link back to Demon's web site from the BBC article, they have made a lot of sensible points regarding this and a lot of other touchy current UK net issues, mainly around cryptography and e-commerce.

    It's nice to see that even with Big Corp at the head rather than Cliff, they still seem to be trying to Do It Right...

    IANAL, etc.
    Tim.

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