Liability in (german) Internet Forums

  • Hi,


    Josch postes in the german part an interesting thing about the liability of posts in Internetforums. Prerecording it must be said, that the german judicature is complicated like in many countrys. In my job I have much to do with judicature and court´s and judges, so I know what I write.


    In the case which Josch posted it was so, that there was a discussion inside the forum about a company, which "may be" made some "arguable" trades, where concerned and not concerned people talk about it. The named company was angry about it and the lawyer was contacted.
    The Administrator (and owner) of the forum hadn´t read and controlled the posts so the lawyer wrote to the owner of the forum a caution in which he demand a closing of the thread and a demanding, that the owner has to sign in which he has to pay a hughe penalty if there is in future any posting about the theme and everything around it.
    Also he gave an invoice of over 1.000 Euro which the owner has to pay.
    If the owner doesn´t sign and pay it, the lawyer will make an accusation and go to court.


    That means in clear words, that a owner and Administrator C of a forum is liable for any post in his forum, also if he don´t know anything of the post and so on


    The owner goes also to a lawyer and everything goes now to the court. The deccision and so on is not made by court until now. But the end of all is intersting and important for all forums in germany!
    It´s in the end a matter of freedom of speech on one hand, on the other hand a matter of safety for individuals. The all and ever open discussion in the public with no clear frontier.


    My request here and now is only, that everyone who post here, espacially in the "off topic areas" is beware of that, what he or she posts. This forum is in first and general a forum for a game with only some discussion beside the game.
    Neither Holzwurm or the rest of the forum team could of moderators, Supermod´s and Admins read and controll everything in the forum, beside clear bord dressels.
    I´m sure, no one wants that this forum got in such problems like the other one. ;)

    Nur der Pirat ist der wahre Händler, denn nur er hat alle Möglichkeiten (business is war !!! ;) :P

    Dieser Beitrag wurde bereits 1 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Mandela ()

  • Hi Mandela,


    In most of the forums that I frequent on internet, these kind of risks seemed to be eliminated, by some user agreements or forum rules. There is declared that --- all content in user messages may not be controlled by the mod/admins ---and all the responsability of the message is directly bound to the poster... So the owners or admins are not liable to the eventual causes of any written contents of user's messages. AS:


    " Breaking any of the above listed forum rules can result in the loss of posting privileges and possible loss of your forum account. ...Forum also reserves the right to ban any user, at any time, and for any reason.


    Moderators and Administrators frequently review forum messages for those that are in violation of ...Forum rules. Any messages found to be in violation will be deleted without warning or explanation.


    ...Forum reserves the right to edit, reprint, distribute, or delete any posting for any reason and without prior notification or explanation to the author.


    All messages posted become the property of ...Forum.


    ...Forum and its representatives will not be held liable for the result of the usage of any information provided in the ...Forum, and disclaim all liability resulting in the use of the posted information.


    ...Forum takes no responsibility for the content of any of the messages posted in the ...Forum or of the authenticity of its authors.


    All opinions and views expressed in the ...Forum are solely those of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of ...Forum, ......, Inc. or its representatives.


    ...Forum reserves the right to change the aforementioned rules at any time without warning or notice.


    It is the responsibility of the forum member to check this page on a regular basis for any revisions in ...Forum rules before making any posts to the forum.


    By posting to the ...Forum, you agree to abide by the above rules and terms."



    http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=115345


    http://arstechnica.com/site/forum-use.ars


    http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=760666


    Seems sufficient and preventive. I had detailed dialogs with some admins on other forums to be convinced about the subject. But I am not in this juridical domain, Mandela. If you give more information, thus people will gladly learn about the situations.

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  • Interesting.


    Here is a quote, US law: "The two primary areas of liability that service providers have been held liable for are intellectual property and defamation. Liability will in either scenario tends to hinge on whether the court regards the conduct of the service provider to be analogous to that of a publisher or a distributor (book seller, library, printer). In making the determination, courts have taken the following factors (among others) into consideration: whether the service provider holds itself out as having editorial control over the content of its service; whether the service provider actually exercises control over content; whether the service provider has implemented policies and procedures to control content; whether the service provider employs or contracts with people to monitor forums and postings; and whether the service provider uses technology to control user access or content. If a service provider is deemed to be analogous to a publisher, the standard of liability to which it is held is higher than if it is deemed to be a mere distributor (i.e., the "publisher service provider" is generally presumed to have had knowledge of the actionable conduct as if it had committed the underlying actionable conduct, whereas with the"distributor service provider" it must be shown that the provider either knew or had reason to know of the actionable conduct)."


    Here is a website with some U.S. findings: http://www.cyberlibel.com/liabilit.html


    Fascinating.


    And do you know what the difference between a lawyer and a catfish is? One is a scum sucking bottom dwelling scavanger, and the other is just a fish.


    Any resemblence to any poster on this board is purely coincidental (disclaimer). :giggle:

  • @ MoS and B.T.


    Well, the forum rules / bord dressels are clear and in most cases nearly the same one in the forums.
    In the case I wrote, it was so, that the Admin C deleted the thread after the problems begun in hope to keep calm everything. He doesn´t feel guilty or such things, but he want obviate an expensive litigation. It was not so, that there was a really breaching of the rules, also the post were also from concerned people of the themat.


    Well, the problem is, that the "enemy" lawyer made an automatically liability of Admin C / owner of a forum for any posts. Also he demanded a sign under a statement, that if there is any post in future about the themat in his forum, he has to pay a very high penalty.
    The problem is also, that in this case the stement is: "ignorance of forum owners is no excuse in any case, without any exception".
    The enemy lawyer wrote only a letter and so on to the forum owner. He never demanded a naming and adress list of the people who posted there. He only attacks the forum owner.


    Beside Patrician my hobby is modelling of figures (custom action figure scenery of the whole US independence war battle of Cowpens/ NC in scale 1/72) and some othe modelling areas. Well, I buy some magazins of that stuff. It´s total normal that such a magazin set some information to Internet links for further informations.
    After a judgement in germany it is so, that the publisher / editor is full liable for the information in the link he printed.
    That means, if someone is angry of the web site, he could go to court against the website owner and the publischer(s) who printed the link to the website.


    So in case of the touble of the other forum i mentioned, the judicature is fussy.

    Nur der Pirat ist der wahre Händler, denn nur er hat alle Möglichkeiten (business is war !!! ;) :P