PC LOAD LETTER
2nd February 2012, 05:44
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/website-accused-of-defamation-is-closed-by-judge-3005716.html
The scary part:
They must also provide the names and address of all those involved in the posting of defamatory material. Mr Tansey also obtained similar orders against Dotster, which did not enter a defence.
The judge said he had no hesitation in making the orders as he was "entirely satisfied" that the material complained about "was seriously defamatory of Mr Tansey". He was also satisfied, from submissions made by Mr Gill, that any defence he wished to put forward at trial had no reasonable prospect of succeeding.Pre-trial ... before any verdict was issued ... the web site is gone. At the judge's discretion. This also implies that web site owners are absolutely liable for something a user (third-party) posts. If the person concealed their identity, through tor or a foreign anonymous proxy, they could get a web site shut down with no legal repercussions against the user.
This would be like youtube being shut down for one copyrighted video being posted. I suspect we'll be seeing much more of this after the MegaUpload deal.
[edit]
It should be emphasized that an Irish judge ordered a web site hosted in the US to be shut down pre-trial. It seems most international borders no longer matter in this situation ... one of the only places I can think of that's still 'safe' to host a web site is Sweden.
The scary part:
They must also provide the names and address of all those involved in the posting of defamatory material. Mr Tansey also obtained similar orders against Dotster, which did not enter a defence.
The judge said he had no hesitation in making the orders as he was "entirely satisfied" that the material complained about "was seriously defamatory of Mr Tansey". He was also satisfied, from submissions made by Mr Gill, that any defence he wished to put forward at trial had no reasonable prospect of succeeding.Pre-trial ... before any verdict was issued ... the web site is gone. At the judge's discretion. This also implies that web site owners are absolutely liable for something a user (third-party) posts. If the person concealed their identity, through tor or a foreign anonymous proxy, they could get a web site shut down with no legal repercussions against the user.
This would be like youtube being shut down for one copyrighted video being posted. I suspect we'll be seeing much more of this after the MegaUpload deal.
[edit]
It should be emphasized that an Irish judge ordered a web site hosted in the US to be shut down pre-trial. It seems most international borders no longer matter in this situation ... one of the only places I can think of that's still 'safe' to host a web site is Sweden.