FC: More on France and liability; plus Israel, Sweden, Germany

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:

"The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03589.html

---

From: "JM" <jmfaure () mageos com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE : The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 07:54:47 +0200

Hi,

It sounds there's nothing really new there. The case is about Pere Noel
site which is a commercial site in France, facing a lot of issues with
their customers. The related post texts were strongly denigrating this
commercial activity with libel and insulting post. This has never been
allowed in France.

Anyway this case remind us we can't provide a zero-moderation forum with
any content. But we aren't forced to check every post before
publication.

Best regards,

JM Faure

---

From: "Brandon Spun" <brandonspun () hotmail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:39:53 -0400

This is a rough translation of the court decision (courtesy of babel fish)

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY of Lyon, Room of the urgencies, May 28, 2002 28/05/2002 
"Business Father Christmas": SA Father-Noel.fr counters Mr F Mr., Miss E C 
and limited liability company Deviant Network Slandering - Insults - Forum 
of discussion - Responsibility for the managers (yes) - Law on the Freedom 
of the press Decision with format pdf Extracts of the ordinance "(...) that 
it is constant that them [ responsible ] took the initiative to create a 
service of audio-visual communication in order to exchange opinions on 
topics defined in advance and in the species, relating to the difficulties 
encountered by certain consumers vis-a-vis certain companies of sale; that 
they cannot thus oppose a defect of monitoring of the messages which are 
the object of this litigation; that they regard themselves as the 
originators of the accused site and must thus answer of the infringements 
which could be made on the site that they created

---

Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:08:11 +0200
From: "BoazGuttmanAdv." <bg10 () bezeqint net>
Organization: B.GRG Ltd.
To: declan () well com, benoit.tabaka () wanadoo fr
Subject: Re: FC: The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?

Thats very important decision.
Just today defamation suite was sent to Israeli District Court in Tel Aviv
against the 2 biggest online websites called:http://rotter.net and
www.walla.co.il .Beside these 2 big websites the suit was sent also against
the biggest ISP in Israel - http://www.netvision.net.il
All the media here deals today with the question if its the end of the chat as
well newsgroups here.The reason of the case was the websites bypass  court
order to ban publishing of a private person detail.
thanks for this important decision.i will add soon the pdf to my faculty
section in the cyber crimes page today in my websites.
best regards
Boaz Guttman Adv.
http://www.4law.co.il
http://www.bgrg.co.il

---

Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 15:21:30 +0200 (MEST)
From: Mikael Pawlo <mikael () pawlo com>
X-Sender: mpawlo@kairos
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
cc: politech () politechbot com
Subject: Re: FC: The death of unmoderated discussion groups in France?

On Thu, 30 May 2002, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> From: "Benoit Tabaka" <benoit.tabaka () wanadoo fr> To: <declan () well com>
> Subject: The death of french unmoderated forums Date: Wed, 29 May 2002
> 22:40:01 +0200
> A short piece of news from France. Yesterday, a french lower Court decided
> for the first time in Europe that a webmaster is responsible for comments
> published by Net surfers on unmoderated forums of its Internet site. This
> webmaster was sued for libel.
(---)

Declan,
Related legal development in Sweden:

"Aftonbladet, a leading Swedish evening newspaper, pulled down its online
comment forums, following a court ruling this week that it was responsible
for death threats against Jews posted on its site."

http://www.theregus.com/content/6/24265.html
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24632.html

"If the media companies and their publishers are held accountable for
everything published in their web forums we will soon face
an Internet where the possibility of a widened debate has been seriously
damaged by law. Let us grasp the uniqueness of the Internet before it is
gone. The Internet is not a newspaper."

Regards

Mikael

_________________________________________________________________________

  ICQ:35638414                                mailto:mikael () pawlo com
  +46-70 421 58 25                            http://www.pawlo.com/

---


Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2002 14:10:58 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: radtimes <resist () best com>
Subject: Steffi Graf wins battle against Microsoft

Steffi Graf wins battle against Microsoft

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Articleshow.asp?art_id=11291147

TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2002  9:52:52 PM
AFP

COLOGNE: Former tennis star Steffi Graf won a legal battle against Microsoft
on Tuesday when a German court held the US software giant responsible for
users posting fake nude photos of her on its Internet service.

The superior court here upheld a previous ruling in December that photo
montages of nude models topped with Graf's face, posted on Microsoft
Network's German online service, could legally be considered company
property.

Links to the photos were found on the Web site of the company's German unit,
and the pages featured Microsoft banner advertising.

[...]




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------