04 October 2005

Blogs vs. the law

A blogger was sued in August for defamation and revealing trade secrets. But he isn't going to court for what he said -- but rather, for what readers of his blog posted as comments!

Read about how a "Showdown looms over bloggers and their rights" in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05277/582101.stm

3 comments:

Martin Weiss said...

I saw this article as well. I have not researched it, though I am puzzled by the reasoning that could hold one person liable for another's speech. The closest I can come is to imagine that the blogger failed to remove the comments at issue ...

Anonymous said...

We live in a world with laws and regulations. Assuming the individuals in question do not have diplomatic immunity, in this sense, libel laws apply to everyone. However, I do not believe that the website owner should be responsible for what others have stated on his blog. If anyone is to be sued for libel, I believe it should be those individuals whom have written such derogatory remarks. The individuals whom have made such remarks were and are not employees of the website blog (as they would be if it were a newspaper), nor does it appear that they paid any type of per diem compensation; therefore, I do not believe the owner can or should be held liable.

Martin Weiss said...

While there is no news on this particular case yet (at least that I have been able to find), the Electronic Frontier Foundation has this page summarizing some of the cases that will (presumably) help determine the rights and responsibilities of bloggers anonymous or not.