Even completely ignoring a complaint has generally been found not to garner liability, so protection appears to be very comprehensive, though it still doesn't stop people from trying.
The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision overturned, holding that Rosenthal was a "user of interactive computer services" and therefore immune from liability under Section 230.
1995), an internet services provider who merely transmitted material that infringed the plaintiff’s copyright was held not liable.
See also CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir., 2004) [6] The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is one US law covering this area.
Gutnick v Dow Jones US publisher, liable in Australia under the relatively new lex loci delicti rule (where the harm happens).
The permanent nature of the internet and the fact that regulation of what people post is almost impossible to maintain can lead to many dangerous situations.
The first case considering online defamation was in Godfrey v. Demon Internet Service [1999] 4 All ER 342, [2001] QB 201 (QBD).
An anonymous poster impersonated a physics lecturer and posted a defamatory comments on a Usenet newsgroup.
The later case of Bunt v. Tilley & Ors [2006] EWHC 407 (QB), concerned a claim for alleged defamation against the ISPs who hosted websites containing defamatory material.
The court found that the ISPs were merely passive facilitators rather than actively procuring the commission of the tort like a publisher.
According to the UK Patent Office website, the definition of 'original' is the following: "A work can only be original if it is the result of independent creative effort.
The term 'original' also involves a test of substantiality - literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works will not be original if there has not been sufficient skill and labour expended in their creation.
Ultimately, only the courts can decide whether something is original, but there is much case law indicating, for example, that names and titles do not have sufficient substantiality to be original and that, where an existing work is widely known, it will be difficult to convince a court that there has been no copying if your work is very similar or identical.
It is said that the major purpose of the law is to limit the liability of ISPs, administrators and system operators of bulletin boards, hosting services, and others.
In Carter v. BC Federation of Foster Parents Association, 2004 BCSC 137, a case on a service provider's liability for an anonymous forum posting, the Court cited the US cases of Cubby v. Compuserve and Lunney v. Prodigy Services with approval for its editorial control test.
Where a defamatory statement is found, a service provider may avail themselves to a defence of innocent dissemination - as set out in the English case of Vizetelly v. Mudie’s Select Library Ltd., [1900] 2 Q.B.