Scenario in US

Cases

Cubby, Inc. vs. CompuServe, Inc.
CompuServe is a company that provides computer-related products and services including a special service named CompuServe Information Service (CIS). CIS serves like an online electronic library which is accessible from a personal computer. Subscribers can access over 150 special interest forums, bulletin boards, chatrooms and databases. One of the forums is the "Journalism Forum" which focuses on journalism industry. In this forum, there is an electronic newsletter named "Rumorville" which was not controlled by CompuServe but by another company named Cameron Communications, Inc. (CCI). The relationship is indirect: CCI was hired by CompuServe to monitor and control the content of "Journalism Forum" according to the standards of CompuServe.

In 1990, Cubby, Inc., a competitor of CompuServe, filed a defamation lawsuit against CompuServe and the publisher of "Rumorville" because the "Rumorville" had published libelous remarks towards Cubby, Inc. CompuServe argued that they had no knowledge of the content of ""Rumorville"" and the allegedly defamatory statements, and that CompuServe was only a distributor but not a publisher of "Rumorville".

The conclusion of the court was in favor of CompuServe. The court agreed that CompuServe had no more editorial control over the "Rumorville" content than does any public library, bookstore or newsstand. It would be also infeasible for CompuServe to monitor every publication in over 150 forums. Therefore CompuServe was not treated as a publisher but only a distributor. The court also stated that the ruling CompuServe as a publisher responsible of monitor control would be an "impermissible burden on the First Amendment" which protects the freedom of speech (Ferrera, 2001).

This case reflects a possible harm for the ISP. On one hand, the ISP can escape liability if it takes a completely "hands off" approach regarding the content. On the other hand, the lack of effort of ISP might also result in bearing the liability of negligence. However, this was an early case involving an ISP in the U.S. which prompted more similar cases afterwards focusing on the liability of ISP.