Forum Operators CAN be liable afterall
In many jurisdictions including Singapore there are statutory defences for forum owners/providers for action to make them liable for statements and actions made by their users on their servers. In essence the carrier defence - that they are merely telephone service providers and thus not able nor have the capacity to monitor or manage the content being published on the servers. The defence in most countries is restricted by the condition that they neverthelss are required to act when informed of the offending material. Also, forum owners are not under a duty to actively search or moderate offending material.
In an surprising result in Hamburg, judges had thrown out that view of defence available to Forum owners. According to the judge at the first instance, providing Internet forums is, a type of business operation. Accordingly, operators are considered to be able to hire staff with legal training to be able to handle such operations.
According to the district court of Hamburg - "If the number of forums and comments in them is so great that the opposing party does not have the staff or technical means to review comments before they are published, they either have to expand their in-house resources or [...] reduce the scope of their business operations."
Unfortunately the Hamburg court did not clearly state its opinion on whether every Web forum could be held liable or only restricted to the services of the press. The court did however stated that the decision also applied to companies that disseminate content via the Internet. Consequently, every Internet forum probably falls under this category because the judges did not make any further distinctions.
This case in my opinion has wide implications. However, based on the judge's view of how businesses that goes into providing forum services ought to have the sufficient manpower to manage offensive and liable content there is some fair justification for the outcome of the case. The problem I perceive is whether all countries will follow by policy - agree with the ratio decidendi. Telco and Web service providers will be up in arms to refute such developments - I am sure.
heise online - First-instance district court of Hamburg says forum operators are liable for comments
In an surprising result in Hamburg, judges had thrown out that view of defence available to Forum owners. According to the judge at the first instance, providing Internet forums is, a type of business operation. Accordingly, operators are considered to be able to hire staff with legal training to be able to handle such operations.
According to the district court of Hamburg - "If the number of forums and comments in them is so great that the opposing party does not have the staff or technical means to review comments before they are published, they either have to expand their in-house resources or [...] reduce the scope of their business operations."
Unfortunately the Hamburg court did not clearly state its opinion on whether every Web forum could be held liable or only restricted to the services of the press. The court did however stated that the decision also applied to companies that disseminate content via the Internet. Consequently, every Internet forum probably falls under this category because the judges did not make any further distinctions.
This case in my opinion has wide implications. However, based on the judge's view of how businesses that goes into providing forum services ought to have the sufficient manpower to manage offensive and liable content there is some fair justification for the outcome of the case. The problem I perceive is whether all countries will follow by policy - agree with the ratio decidendi. Telco and Web service providers will be up in arms to refute such developments - I am sure.
heise online - First-instance district court of Hamburg says forum operators are liable for comments
posted by Harry SK Tan at
5/10/2006 08:34:00 pm
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