Congress Looks To Extend Safe Harbors To Service Providers Hit By Foreign Rulings
from the good-news! dept
We've often talked about the importance of service provider "safe harbors" found in the CDA and the DMCA. To be honest, these safe harbor laws shouldn't be necessary at all, since it should be common sense that the user of a service is liable for his or her actions rather than the service provider. In practice, however, we've learned that common sense isn't so common -- and it's not unusual for individuals (and sometimes judges and politicians) to blame service providers. Thus, safe harbors are key to bringing common sense to the law. However, we've definitely seen that such common sense is often totally lacking in foreign countries that have no recognition at all concerning the separation between a service provider and a user. Witness, for example, LVMH's victory over eBay in France, or the fact that Google execs are facing criminal charges in Italy over a video of kids attacking a disabled boy that was uploaded to its site (and quickly removed).It appears that US politicians have finally realized this is a problem. While it doesn't appear to be a blanket safe harbor, it appears that Congress is currently considering a bill that would allow US companies to ignore foreign rulings in defamation cases against service providers, where the issue is actually the action of a user. While limited to just defamation cases (for now), this is important, especially since so many other countries have more draconian defamation laws that lead to "defamation tourism" as people try to find the most favorable countries in which to file a defamation lawsuit. Making it so that the US won't recognize those rulings will help protect US companies from bogus and misguided defamation suits around the world.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: defamation, foreign courts, safe harbors
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
And give even more fuel to the anti-American sentiment that the US does what it wants when it wants... :(
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So this is only going to help to the extent that a US company isn't operating in the foreign jurisdiction in which prosecution is already problematical.
Seems like political grand standing to me. Play to the masses who seem to think US law actually makes a difference in foreign jurisdictions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
In other words, any company that does its business remotely over the internet. Which is a lot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
agreed
I'm patiently waiting for the bad car analogy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"Congress Looks To Extend Safe Harbors To Service Providers Hit By Foreign Rulings"
Key point in article:
"it appears that Congress is currently considering a bill that would allow US companies to ignore foreign rulings in defamation cases against service providers"
Matches to me. Reading is good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Then again, the US government has a tradition of ignoring international treaties when it's not convenient for them...why stop now?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
France and Italy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: France and Italy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One Ring to Rule Them All
And how would this help US companies in foreign countries? Oh yeah, I forgot, US law applies worldwide nowadays. Take that, France!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Consider the case of Dow Jones v J Gutnik. Gutnik has a reputation in Australia but not much of one in the US.
Seems reasonable that he would sue in Australia, where his reputation was most damaged.
Seems unreasonable that a company can profit by destroying his reputation untruthfully, but have no liability simply because the company is registered in the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]