AlanBarber.Org
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Bloggers Protected from Libel
Wired News posted an article about a court rulling that protects Bloggers, Website Authors, and Email List Owners from being sued for libel.From the story:
"The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can't be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online publishers." So before you go out and start posting libelous and sladerous articles on your blog remember it just says that people the republish content cannot be sued.
You can read the article for the whole details of the court case. Right now the lawyers will be appealing the ruling obviouslly but I have high hopes it will be overturned.
I think this is a great announcement. Becuase of the vary nature of blogging data is republished over and over again from blog to blog as people read it. Of course it's not right to libel someone and the original creator should be held responsible but the people that read the message and decide to quote it and comment on it should not be. They aren't making the false claims just publishing that they've heard the false claims.
So once again free speech is safe for now and the chicken littles always screaming about how we're loosing our First Amendment rights have been proven wrong.
on 07/01/2003 at 01:45 PM