Hamburg Court: Online Publisher is Liable for Reader Comments. Also for Comments on Blogs?
The first-instance district court of Hamburg has issued a temporary restraining order preventing an on line publisher Heise Zeitschriften Verlag from publishing reader comments on a forum. Those comments called on others to overload a third party’s server by massively downloading a programme. In the future Heise will have to review all comments and discussion forums.
Joerg Heidrich, the attorney representing Heise Zeitschriften Verlag, said that "if this decision sets a precedent, every provider who offers readers the possibility of posting comments without filters will be immediately liable for breaches of the law in those comments and can be sued."
He stressed that this judgment contradicts the expressed will of the German parliament and of the EU e-commerce Directive which exonerates intermediary service providers from any liability where they have played a passive role in transmitting information from a third party. The e-commerce Directive also limits the liability of providers of other intermediary service such as the storage of information. In other words, providers of infrastructure services and access services cannot be held liable for the information transmitted, provided that they do not initiate the transmission and do not select the recipient of the transmission or the information it contains.
Heise Zeitschriften Verlag has announced that it would appeal this judgment.
This judgment could potentially indeed set a precedent not only for forums, but also for blogs (see Lawsuits against bloggers). For a short overview of the legal rules applicable to bloggers in some specific jurisdictions, including liability for blog-comments, see my previous post.
Joerg Heidrich, the attorney representing Heise Zeitschriften Verlag, said that "if this decision sets a precedent, every provider who offers readers the possibility of posting comments without filters will be immediately liable for breaches of the law in those comments and can be sued."
He stressed that this judgment contradicts the expressed will of the German parliament and of the EU e-commerce Directive which exonerates intermediary service providers from any liability where they have played a passive role in transmitting information from a third party. The e-commerce Directive also limits the liability of providers of other intermediary service such as the storage of information. In other words, providers of infrastructure services and access services cannot be held liable for the information transmitted, provided that they do not initiate the transmission and do not select the recipient of the transmission or the information it contains.
Heise Zeitschriften Verlag has announced that it would appeal this judgment.
This judgment could potentially indeed set a precedent not only for forums, but also for blogs (see Lawsuits against bloggers). For a short overview of the legal rules applicable to bloggers in some specific jurisdictions, including liability for blog-comments, see my previous post.
posted by Edwin Jacobs at 00:57
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