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Calif. Supreme Court Extends Web Libel Protections to Individual Users

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 21, 2006 - 1:52pm.
San Francisco - The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that individuals who republish third-party defamatory information about someone online cannot be sued for libel. Under the ruling, which expands free speech protections of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, only the original source of a defamatory statement on the Internet can be sued, and not anyone who republishes the statement.

The law in question already shielded large companies like AOL and eBay from such liability; the majority opinion from the California Supreme Court said the statute also "comprehensively immunized republication by individual Internet users."

The case centered on a woman who republished a defamatory statement about two doctors on the Internet that was originally written by someone else. The doctors then sued the woman for redistributing the defamatory statements.

An appellate court agreed she should be held liable, but the state's Supreme Court said in its ruling that "the volume and range of Internet communications make the 'heckler's veto' a real threat under the Court of Appeal's holding."

Related Links:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S122953.PDF (PDF of ruling)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/internet_libel (AP)
http://tinyurl.com/y9fhka (CNET)
tags: Internet | Law | Online Publishing | Blogs | Censorship | California | ISP | Libel |



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