I got sued for $3 Million by a religious cult | Hacker News Reader

I got sued for $3 Million by a religious cult

skeptical-science.com

66 pointslumberjack15 comments

This is relevant to any webmaster who keeps a Web2.0 website. Interesting searching the footer I can't spot any legal terms of use?!

Open articleView on HN

I have serious trouble with any claim crossing (or getting in the general ballpark of) the 'million $currency' line.

So while the hints and lessons might be worth a read, I'd like to finish with my general 'This legal system is insane and I cry every time I see one of these sue-because-it-works-and-grants-you-a-shitload-of-money-for-no-reason articles'.

3 million. Because of a comment. Even the RIAA just blushed.

That's the headline number from the statement of claim, not how much they're entitled to. You can write whatever number you want in a statement of claim, and they did!

The RIAA did not blush; $3MM is the statutory damages for only 20 instances of copyright infringement.

U.S. bloggers: Note that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives protection from defamation claims associated with anonymous comments. Quoting from the Electronic Frontier Foundation website (1):

...Your readers' comments, entries written by guest bloggers, tips sent by email, and information provided to you through an RSS feed would all likely be considered information provided by another content provider. This would mean that you would not be held liable for defamatory statements contained in it...

The EFF page adds, "[Section 230] does not apply to federal criminal law, intellectual property law, and electronic communications privacy law."

The Citizen's Media Law project contains additional information about Section 230 and blogging (2):

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act grants interactive online services of all types, including blogs, forums, and listservs, broad immunity from tort liability so long as the information at issue is provided by a third party. Relatively few court decisions, however, have analyzed the scope of this immunity in the context of "mixed content" that is created jointly by the operator of the interactive service and a third party through significant editing of content or the shaping of content by submission forms and drop-downs.

So what are the practical things you can take away from this guide? Here are five:

1) If you passively host third-party content, you will be fully protected under Section 230.

2) If you exercise traditional editorial functions over user submitted content, such as deciding whether to publish, remove, or edit material, you will not lose your immunity unless your edits materially alter the meaning of the content.

3) If you pre-screen objectionable content or correct, edit, or remove content, you will not lose your immunity.

4) If you encourage or pay third-parties to create or submit content, you will not lose your immunity.

5) If you use drop-down forms or multiple-choice questionnaires, you should be cautious of allowing users to submit information through these forms that might be deemed illegal.

Note that there are some exceptions and scenarios where the law is not so clear. In addition, I have heard an expert in this type of law advise either taking down offending comments or starting a dialogue with the person complaining to head off legal disputes. His reasoning: Is it really worth dealing with the hassle and cost of having to hire a lawyer to bring up Section 230 in front of a judge in order to get the case dismissed?

Read the EFF and Citizens' Media Law website for more information about Section 230.

1) https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230

2) http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publi...

Outstanding summary and links. I constantly refer people to the CMLP and EFF sites (as well as chillingeffects.org and Stanford's fair use site) as great references for bloggers and other online publishers.

Although helpful for US lawsuits, the article is about Canadian law so none of this would apply.

As far as I understand international cases, in most countries they are only enforcable if the things that you did were also illegal in your home country. So if it's OK to do this in the us, it doesn't seem to be enforcable here (but IANAL).

No kidding, you aren't a lawyer and this is completely wrong. If you read the original piece, the case would have gone to Canadian courts. Courts use the law of the land they are in, they do not make "exceptions" for people who live in countries with different laws.

There's a difference between a court delivering a judgement and this judgement being enforcable. I never said that the case wouldn't go to Canadian courts. Just because some foreign court says you're doing something wrong doesn't mean that your home country automatically agrees with that decision. Many countries (maybe except the UK) won't care that much unless what you did is also illegal according to their law.

tl;dw: They accusers eventually backed down.

This is relevant to any webmaster who maintains a web2.0 website (so basically every webmaster today). Interestingly enough I still can't find any legal terms or even copyright on skeptical-science.com which is kind of disappointing because I wanted to see how well those disclaimers of the type "All comments, links and content is user generated and owned by the poster. No legal responsibility..." hold up in court.

Somewhat related for US companies: it's probably a good idea to file a DMCA safe harbor form if your site has user-generated content[1].

1. http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

Those disclaimers shouldn't be necessary under US law provided we're talking third-party, user-generated content. See discussion of CDA Section 230 in an earlier comment. As a social media lawyer I thank God every day that that section (and DMCA Section 512) exist, because with out them, social media wouldn't exist as we know it in America. Every site of any scale would be sued into bankruptcy within weeks.

Would a disclaimer that a commenters views are not you own suffice?

tl;dr: if you're threatened with a libel suit in the Commonwealth bend over and take it like a man

My grandfather told me men don't bend over and take it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com