Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (
More info?)
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:50:08 -0000, Jeremy Nixon <jeremy@exit109.com>
wrote:
>Owamanga <nomail@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Goolge isn't publishing anything until it gets an editor. As soon as
>> they edit or censor one post, they become a publisher. It's for that
>> reason, they won't edit anything.
>
>This is an oft-repeated myth that is completely incorrect.
I disagree.
To quote a legal site (link at the bottom)
i) By exercising responsibility and attempting to regulate the nature
of the content, the online service provider may then become a
publisher and can be sued for libel. On the other hand, if they do
absolutely nothing, they could be sued for negligence for failing to
maintain security procedures, or for negligent misstatement.
>There is *no* legal basis in the US to say that editing or censoring makes
>you responsible for what remains. The court decision (the Prodigy case)
>that said so was specifically and deliberately invalidated by later
>legislation that says exactly the opposite.
Cite please.
Here's one assessment I found of that case:
<start of clip>
A second New York case, Stratton Oakmount v. Prodigy 23 Med. L.R. 1794
(S.C., Nassau County 1995), involving a libel action by Stratton
Oakmount, arose out of an allegedly defamatory posting on a finance
oriented bulletin board on the Prodigy Online Service. The originator
of the defamation was falsely identified and remains unknown.
On a motion for summary judgment brought by the plaintiff, the court
found that Prodigy was a "publisher" for the following reasons:
i) In the past, Prodigy had held itself out as being a "family
oriented" computer network and exercised editorial control over the
content of its editorial boards in order to make itself more appealing
to certain segments of the market.
ii) Prodigy had posted "content guidelines" to its users regarding
what Prodigy regarded as proper and appropriate for posting on
Prodigy's bulletin boards.
iii) Prodigy used a software screening program to screen postings for
offensive language.
iv) Prodigy retained "board leaders" to enforce the guidelines.
v) Prodigy employed technological means to delete postings that
violated the guidelines.
On October 24, 1995, Stratton Oakmount announced that it was dropping
its $200 million libel lawsuit against Prodigy Online Service. Prodigy
had assembled new evidence to show that, since 1992, it had used a
computerized keyword search solely to weed out messages containing
obscene language, but had not scanned messages for defamatory speech.
This evidence, coupled with an apology from Prodigy, was enough to
convince Stratton Oakmount to drop the case.
<end clip>
This suggests that the case was dropped when Prodigy proved they had
*not* edited the content, rather than the introduction of any new
legislation.
More (and the source of my clip) can be found at:
http
/www.cyberlibel.com./liabilit.html
...where it summarizes the UK, US, Canada laws that relate.
As I requested above, I would be interested in seeing this new
legislation you mentioned, do you know what it was called?
--
Owamanga!
IidnexZdp-iHprfRVn-gg@comcast.com...
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