FEAR NOT! The Clean Team is on it!
Fact: Nik Richie and TheDirty.com HAVE broken The Law and have faced several lawsuits because of it.
Total Bollocks: TheDirty.com is perfectly legal and doing nothing wrong.
Fact: Different countries have different laws on the subject, some of them vague and some of them very clear.
Here are a few to consider:
THE U.S LAW SAYS:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
In analyzing the availability of the immunity offered by this provision, courts generally apply a three-prong test. A defendant must satisfy each of the three prongs to gain the benefit of the immunity:
- The defendant must be a "provider or user" of an "interactive computer service."
- The cause of action asserted by the plaintiff must "treat" the defendant "as the publisher or speaker" of the harmful information at issue.
- The information must be "provided by another information content provider," i.e., the defendant must not be the "information content provider" of the harmful information at issue.
What this means is that in the U.S, TheDirty.com can continue to do what they do best, as long as they maintain their Communications Decency Act Immunity, which means complying with the above test. However, due to the damage that they are causing and the manner in which the website is conducted, their days might be numbered. You see, a website owner may lose CDA immunity if it ceases acting as a mere passive conduit and takes an active role in creating, screening, and/or editing the unlawful content. Incidentally, Nik Richie does just that.
Also, have you stopped to wonder WHERE the damage is being done? Check this out:
THE LAW IN THE UNITED KINGDOM SAYS:
The laws of libel and defamation will treat a disseminator of information as having "published" material posted by a user and the onus will then be on a defendant to prove that it did not know the publication was defamatory and was not negligent in failing to know: Goldsmith v Sperrings Ltd (1977) 2 All ER 566; Vizetelly v Mudie's Select Library Ltd (1900) 2 QB 170;Emmens v Pottle & Ors (1885) 16 QBD 354;
Do you see the difference? Do you ever wonder why you don't see anybody posted from The U.K?
Here's a sneaky little tip:
Were you in another country when TheDirty.com's actions affected you? You could have a case! The laws are different in some places and it matters where the damage was done.This is called Lex Loci Delicti. The European Union and The United Kingdom are two examples of these hotspots!
Do you see the difference? Do you ever wonder why you don't see anybody posted from The U.K?
Here's a sneaky little tip:
Were you in another country when TheDirty.com's actions affected you? You could have a case! The laws are different in some places and it matters where the damage was done.This is called Lex Loci Delicti. The European Union and The United Kingdom are two examples of these hotspots!
