Bat Man@sdcc3.UUCP (rich) (01/22/85)
Has anyone ever been sued over anything done over the net? Or do you guys just like threatening each other alot??? from the home of Rocky & Bullwinkle... Commissioner Gordon...
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (01/22/85)
I don't think that any lawsuits have resulted from net-related items to date -- but I know of a couple of cases where suits almost happened due to messages that were seen as libel. One problem is who would get sued? You can't really authenticate message authorship, and the net is totally distributed. Of course, once clear targets (like a broadcast carrier in an operational service) are obvious, this could change. --Lauren--
tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (01/26/85)
Another source of lawsuits can be revelation of private or agreement-protected information. In practice a moderator might be very hard-pressed to detect such disclosure. (In the case I know the particulars of, a lawsuit was planned; it was called off only because the information turned out not to be illegally obtained or in any way protected. In that case, no attempt was made to implicate the network as a whole, just the perpetrator.) Has there been research into the possible legal implications of an illegal revelation happening on a more centralized network like Stargate? Would the network's central organization be liable for damages, or could damage be limited to the person who did the posting? Could a moderator be found to be criminally negligent? -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!" "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.
dw@rocksvax.UUCP (Don Wegeng) (01/27/85)
In article <2645@sdcc3.UUCP> Bat Man@sdcc3.UUCP (rich) writes: > >Has anyone ever been sued over anything done over the net? >Or do you guys just like threatening each other alot??? For obvious reasons I'm not going to go into details, but I am aware of at least one case where a site was threatened with a lawsuit after one of it's users posted a message which stated that another company's product was "garbage". This happened a couple of years ago. While this might be an extreme case, it shows that the need for moderation of some sort is not that off base. -- /Don "Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire. Psycho Killer..." arpa: Wegeng.Henr@Xerox.ARPA uucp: {allegra,princeton,decvax!rochester,amd,sunybcs}!rocksvax!dw || ihnp4!tropix!ritcv!rocksvax!dw
jpm@bnl.UUCP (John McNamee) (01/28/85)
> >Has anyone ever been sued over anything done over the net? > >Or do you guys just like threatening each other alot??? > > For obvious reasons I'm not going to go into details, but I am aware > of at least one case where a site was threatened with a lawsuit after > one of it's users posted a message which stated that another company's > product was "garbage". This happened a couple of years ago. While > this might be an extreme case, it shows that the need for moderation > of some sort is not that off base. I hope that when guidelines for moderation are drawn up that negative product comments are not grounds for rejection. If a printed review called a product "garbage" the vendor might write a nasty letter to the editor and maybe not advertise in that publication, but they wouldnt sue them. I'm all for Stargate, but I would hate to see the moderation so strict that people couldn't express their feelings about bad products. -- John McNamee ..!decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jpm jpm@Bnl.Arpa