Edited by author 06-30-2003 12:44 PM
Good! About time. Now when people harass me to remove archived posts from mailing lists archives, claiming they have been slandered/libeled/whatever'd and threatening me, I can securely put my thumb to my nose and say "Pthhhhhh!" Or something a little nicer.

This is a horrible decision -- we're supposed to jump up and down because these two folks get away with spreading libelous accusations?

If someone e-mails me and says "I overheard someone saying that that Xeni Jardin is a child molester" and I simply post that as-is on my weblog, you really think I should be exempt from the sort of libel laws that a newspaper in that situation would have to face?

If the e-mail had just been sent to an automated list address I could see this, but it was sent to Cremers privately and he choose to redistribute it on his list. He deserves to be held responsible for such willfull negligence (btw, what sort of asshole just passes on info. like that without trying to verify it? Hey some handyman said it an e-mail, it must be true!)

Well, Mr. Carnell, I see you're new around here. Regular BoingBoing readers know I'm accused of being a child molester/pedophile/art slut on these discuss boards every day.

But hey, suing defamatory discuss board flamers... hadn't thought of that one before. Thanks! --XJ

Good news I reckon. But then US defamation law always was better than the crock we have to put up in the UK.

Brian - I haven't read the ruling yet but I wonder if you've missed the point slighty. I would guess that the limitation of liability only applies if someone else posts the material - our EU eCommerce directive gives a similar safe harbour for ISPs for "information stored at the direction of users". If I'm right then this is just taking the safe harbour provisions of S512 of DMCA (not a bad thing in themselves) and extending them to defamation. Which is good, but we need to be wary of takedown procedures - defamation is not as easily demonstrable as copyright infringement, chilling effects etc.

Of course it's entirely possible that the ruling is so much broader that that & I'm just viewing it through jaded British eyes. Damn! I'll have to read it now.

U.S. libel law is generally more favorable to publishers, but there is something here that is problematic. Xeni's article quoted someone from the EFF going on and on about how this exemption is warranted because an e-mail list or blog differs in a number of ways from a newspaper -- it isn't for profit, it doesn't have editors, it doesn't do fact checking, etc.

But that view also would support laws/rulings that give blogs/e-mail lists fewer rights than newspapers. You can't have it both ways -- I suspect down the road this sort of thinking will be cited to limit the rights of blog/e-mail publishers in ways that newspapers could not be.

I don't have much sympathy for the defendants here. I have people send me e-mail all the time wanting me to publicize one thing or another like this guy here did, and I think it's reasonable to expect people to actually investigate or try to verify the information before libeling someone on an e-mail list or on a weblog.

If someone sends me a nasty claim about Xeni and I just post it on my weblog as is without trying to verify it, I think she should be able to sue me for such negligence -- she'd still have a hard time making her case thanks to the liberal libel laws in the U.S., so I don't see why the courts should simply block her from taking such action altogether. Let a jury decide.