hazatude wrote:So there is legal precedent on internet messageboard lawsuits?
Please give me some details...
Here's the whole story about what goes on forums, etc. in Canada.
Something is published on the Internet in Canada when it is viewed. Each seperate viewing of a page is a "publication"
It is only libel that takes place on the Internet. Slander involves only the spoken word.
The rules about defamation and the rights of a defamed party to damages aare exactly the same as if published in a newspaper, with the following exceptions:
An ISP is not liable for damages until it is notified of the libellous material and does not remove it from its servers. But once that occurs, the ISP can be sued.
The liability of a forum owner can vary. If the forum is one where there is much watching over posts and editing, then the owner, ironically, is more in danger of a libel suit than the opposite, a completely open forum where anything can be said and there is little to no moderation. A heavily moderated forum can be sued when a libellous post has been on for a relatively short time and has been left up after what would be considered a reasonable time for the moderators/editors to have caught it.
On an unmoderated forum, the owner becomes responsible upon being notified of the objectionable material.
To sue in Canada, the law is that you must sue in the place where you have your reputation. It is reputation that suffers the damage from libel.
Truth is a defense against libel. Lawyers would always advise you to never plead truth. You have to prove truth in all possible meanings of the statement. For instance, if you say billy buckshot is a criminal based on knowing that 20 years ago he was convicted of shoplifting, you would be ill advised to plead truth, unless you can prove he still is a criminal. Technically, you might be right, but the inference in such a comment is that people must still consider him to be a criminal so far as his present day reputation goes.
The problem with pleading truth is that once you have plead it and lost, you are then liable to triple the ordinary damages. Courts don't like the idea of someone defaming someone, then defaming them again by saying what they said was true.
The only other defenses are called qualified privelege and absolute privelege. You have absolute privelege when you report on any documents filed in a court, any testimony in a court, or any proceedings of parliament or a legislature. Some say that reports of municipal councils are covered under this privelege, others not.
You have qualified privelege if you make a fair comment on a matter of public interest to an audience with a legitimate interest in what is being conveyed. The major qualifier is that there must not be malice in the statement.
None of this matters from the forum owners perspective. The owner will always be faced with excessive legal bills trying to defend what some anonymous poster put up. And for what.
Defamation is anything said about a person to his or her detriment. Outside of politicians and others who hold themselves out to public scrutiny, private people and companies are entitled to the protection of the defamation laws.
It is an act of rather disgraceful cowardice to blacken the name of some individual or company from the anonymity of some false name on the Internet. Cowardice is never a good quality in a pilot or in any person. It certainly isn't something a forum owner should be asked to pay for.
