A French Court (here, in French), held last month that the fuzz.com site is responsible for content published on another site that could be accessed from RSS feed provided by fuzz. The court noted that fuzz is making editorial choices when posting the RSS on its site, and is thus an editor, not a provider.
If the decision would be followed by other court, it could prevent the development of French sites similar to digg or del.ici.ous, both social network sites using favorites sites as a way to connect people with similar interests. Concerns expressed here (in French).
The French law and the American law both distinguish between a web site editor and a information content provider. Article 6 of the June 21, 2004 law defines the editor as a person creating the online content. However, a provider is merely storing the information provided by the publisher. Section 230 (c)(1) of the CDA provides that "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 Zeran v. AOL, the 4th Circuit had held in 1997 that Section 230 “creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.” A California Appellate Court held in 2006, Stephen J. Barrett, et al. v. Ilena Rosenthal, that section 230 did not abrogate "the common law principle that one who republishes defamatory matter originated by a third person is subject to liability if he or she knows or has reason to know its defamatory character." A provider of defamatory content could still be liable, if he knew that the content was defamatory, and only editors would be protected by section 230. That decision was reversed by the California Supreme Court the same year.
If the decision would be followed by other court, it could prevent the development of French sites similar to digg or del.ici.ous, both social network sites using favorites sites as a way to connect people with similar interests. Concerns expressed here (in French).
The French law and the American law both distinguish between a web site editor and a information content provider. Article 6 of the June 21, 2004 law defines the editor as a person creating the online content. However, a provider is merely storing the information provided by the publisher. Section 230 (c)(1) of the CDA provides that "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 Zeran v. AOL, the 4th Circuit had held in 1997 that Section 230 “creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.” A California Appellate Court held in 2006, Stephen J. Barrett, et al. v. Ilena Rosenthal, that section 230 did not abrogate "the common law principle that one who republishes defamatory matter originated by a third person is subject to liability if he or she knows or has reason to know its defamatory character." A provider of defamatory content could still be liable, if he knew that the content was defamatory, and only editors would be protected by section 230. That decision was reversed by the California Supreme Court the same year.
No U.S. court has yet examined the issue of the potential liability of RSS feeds published on one's site, or the issue of the potential responsability of digg or del.icio.us users recommending a site publishing defamatory content.
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