11.36, Thursday 20 Apr 2000

Nick Sweeney ('Not A Lawyer') manages to explain all of yesterdays comments about Godfrey vs. Demon in a single paragraph.
 
1996 Defamation Act, section 1: That's the only defence that Demon could even hope to use, and the judge threw it out, which is why they had to settle before amassing any more costs. Basically, you become a "publisher" from the moment you're told it's there, and you're expected to take action to deal with it. It would take new statute law explicitly defining an ISP as a carrier to change this (or, ironically, a favourable judgement after the RIP Bill becomes law, given that it would classify an ISP as a "public telecommunication system").