Brunker thread closed

FX Meister

BolBill wrote:

Hardly slanderous saying she has nice juggs is it? I mean she'd be nobody (or less of a nobody) without them

They are not nice, just big. Saw her in a swim suit on a holiday program lately and her thighs were horrible, pretty huge and the cellulite was all over them. Urggghhh!!

Talliesin

bonkey wrote:

Could I sign an agreement with a pal saying that if we got caught robbing a bank that he would assume full responsibility, and then engage in bank-robbing with said pal safe in the knowledge that if we are ever caught that I would have no legal liability?

If you and a pal where going into a business agreement of some sort he could indemnify you against civil (not criminal) action by agreeing to pay any liability you are found to have. You still get sued, but he pays up. Indeed that's exactly what insurance companies will do for some people (but note the current situation with the difficulty doctors have getting such insurance).

To apply this to boards they'd first have to do a credit check on all users signing up (to make sure they could pay up if this happened) and then get them to sign a contract (a paper one, not just clicking a button). Users who couldn't easily afford the potential costs of a libel case would have to get libel insurance.

I don't see that working really.

sceptre

lomb wrote:

anyway, if u ever get a chance to speak to ur solicitor ask him has there ever been a case in england/ wales or indeed ireland as the laws are basically the same (same principles) against an internet forum or indeed a live radio/ tv broadcast with a third party involved against the publisher.

To find out some basic (or complicated if that's your boat) about the first one, google for demon internet laurence godfrey (the case is Laurence Godfrey v Demon Internet Limited). It's an ISP case rather than a case taken against a webboard but if you can explain how liability falling on the more removed party of the ISP in a complaint by an injured party could in any way result in the less removed party of the web board administrators having no liability whatever, you might find yourself the toast of the legal profession in the western world.

You can also check into the Sunday Herald (based in Scotland) paying George Robinson off over comments from some bloke on their forums that he'd covered up the Dunblane killings. That's the most recent example I can think of (happened last Autumn)

i seriously doubt it.

See above.

only a real defamation solicitor could guide u on this, not some guy who does house transfers.

Of course. Having said that, with all due respect, I'd trust a conveyancing guy over someone who clearly doesn't know owt about what he's saying.

We don't have the protection afforded to Americans (NY Times v Sullivan) where a statement not only has to be untrue but has to be uttered with actual malice - we've got a rule of strict liability here (and in the UK) which pretty much places heavy liability on anyone involved in sending information out, regardless of who wrote it. Canadian libel law (which would also be considered by Irish courts as another common law system) specifically exposes "everyone involved in a communication" to action (except for what they call innocent dissemination, which basically means postmen). I don't like thee idea that a company is as liable for comments posted by anonymous people as it might be for people formally on the payroll but that's the way it is. Boards is in a bigger hole as its posts are moderated (not as bad as the Aftonbladet case in Sweden where posts were pre-moderated) so erring on the side of caution is good. To do less would be asking for trouble.

Oh yeah, the thread was stupid as well. Brunker may be an idiot (and in my humble opinion she is) but frankly the thread was a waste of good storage and bandwidth anyway.

(btw, I'm not a lawyer. Thank ****)

kaimera

sceptre wrote:

(btw, I'm not a lawyer. Thank ****)

but you could be..