Bloggers Gain Libel Protection
From NewsScan:
With a ruling last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
shielded Webloggers, e-mail list administrators and Website operators from
libel claims for information they republish, effectively differentiating
such publishers from “one-way” print media outlets. The court based its
decision on the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides that “no
provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information
content provider.” In subsequent court challenges to the CDA the courts have
confirmed that commercial ISPs are protected under the law, and this recent
ruling extends that protection to non-commercial publishers. This particular
case involved an individual message that was reposted to an e-mail list,
causing financial damages to Ellen Betzel, the subject of the message. The
Ninth Circuit remanded the matter to the lower court to determine wheter the
list administrator had reasonable belief that the original message was
intended for republishing, which will add detail to the case’s precedent.
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