Who is responsible for ILX?

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inspired partly by the ILM wife beater thread. if a narked popster was to sue ilm for libel who would they take court action against? as i understand it (feel free to correct me), in publishing the accountable party is the publisher.. ie. if steven wells were to claim in NME that gavin rossdale sucks sheep udders it would be IPC/Aol-Time Warner who would be on the end of an attack from the bush legal team. is there a precedent for internet libel and how would it work in this kind of instance?

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 18:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Short answer: Tom Ewing.

Long Answer: Shakespeare.

― david h (david h), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Everyone is responsible for their own posts.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 22:20 (twenty-three years ago)

not quite. 'everyone' doesnt have editorial control over ilx. individual posters are responsible for justifying themselves to the ilx community but it is the role of the moderator to decide whether their posts are appropriate for the forum or not. making it = the same role as a publisher in instances of print libel. or so i would have thought, anyway.

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the moderator has the same theoretical liabilities (whatever those might be) as an editor would have. The 'publisher' of ILX would be poor old Andrew I suppose (and Greenspun too for those posts on the old boards) - they are the people making the material available for public view. It was Demon who got sued over newsgroup postings, wasn't it - what happened in that case?

I think there have been test cases involving moderated forums but I don't know what happened in them.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:19 (twenty-three years ago)

The complicating matter is that neither I nor Andrew have the ability to stop people from posting material, just to edit it after publication. So my role is more like a censor than a publisher. I don't know if or how much that matters legally. If a film slanders somebody, for instance, is the censor liable for not cutting it?

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:22 (twenty-three years ago)

And - blimey this gets even more complicated but it's interesting - could they sue ILX as a legal entity given that it doesn't have any money and isn't registered as a company or as anything other than a website? (Which is registered to David Raposa IIRC!) Would any suits have to be taken against private individuals, in which case we're back to individual posters I suppose?

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:31 (twenty-three years ago)

The demon case was a bit of a mess, really. Common carrier was waved around but they backed down before it went to court. If no moderation applied + copyright belongs to writer then responsibility clearly with writer. If moderation applied, messier, but I would guess a case could be made that it was still writers responsibility unless what was written contravened clear moderation policy and remained up.

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:39 (twenty-three years ago)

i seem to remember there was a bit of fuss over this kind of thing after that mariah carey thing ("i am soo jealous of like starving people etc etc") a few years back, when the interweb was called the information superhighway and we all mooched about in VR goggles. anyway, interest in the legalities of the internet being peak at that time it did raise some interesting questions about libel and i wondered if anything ever came of that particular case. anyone remember what the outcome was?

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 23:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely popbitch has been sued at some point?

I have actually deleted a cpl of posts from the wifebeater thread, not because I want to protect the people concerned but because while I've heard the rumours I've never seen any kind of confirmation (and have seen denials).

Doomie was going to sue us at one time because Mark S libelled Alan McGee! I deleted a whole thread then!

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:05 (twenty-three years ago)

If were Jess I'd be worried about A Flock Of Seagulls working out what google was for.

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:19 (twenty-three years ago)

its bizarre that popbitch has continued relatively unscathed. who sued them? i know they got into a bit of bother with the chart regulators for publishing the mid-week positions..

― Wyndham Earl, Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:27 (twenty-three years ago)

If I received some sort of cease-and-desist letter, I'd contact my solicitor. If they had a case against me, I would remove the offending content.

I ain't goin' to jail for no jive-ass turkey.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:35 (twenty-three years ago)

A turkey is a bad person

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:41 (twenty-three years ago)

"I have actually deleted a cpl of posts from the wifebeater thread"

oh. ha. it was mine. nevermind, i ain't goin' to jail for no jive-ass romo.

― Wyndham Earl, Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:43 (twenty-three years ago)

If I was having to share a jail cell with anyone, I'd rather a jive-ass romo.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:46 (twenty-three years ago)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom, I hope you're not trying to get litigious bastards to send me their horsecrap suits. Not that I'd mind the attention.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 17 October 2002 01:27 (twenty-three years ago)

It wouldn't be worth raising a suit about anything that was said here unless you had first learnt that Andrew or Tom or someone was really wealthy.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Or DG. He's surely raised a small fortune from all his devious schemes that I'm completely imagining he must run.

I think that allowing anyone to post with no checking does remove uyour legal respoinsibility as an editor or publisher. I'll try and dig up The Register article I read that in.

― Graham (graham), Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Hang on, it says you are responsible, under British law at least.

― Graham (graham), Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:49 (twenty-three years ago)

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