Information overlord and b2fxxx both comment on the recent case of Bunt v Tilley & Others. An interesting Internet defamation case that illustrated a useful distinction from the case of Godfrey v Demon. In summary what happened was that, allegedly, several individuals made defamatory remarks about Bunt’s business. These remarks were published on forums that were not provided by the defendant companies, AOL BT and Tiscali, who merely acted as ISPs to the individuals. Bunt claimed many things including that by providing access to the Internet and thereby enabling the comments to be made they were liable as publishers. The ISPs sought to dismiss the claims.
They won, and Eady J. said that the corporate Defendants had not “knowingly participated in the relevant publications” and at paras 36 & 37;
More generally, I am also prepared to hold as a matter of law that an ISP which performs no more than a passive role in facilitating postings on the internet cannot be deemed to be a publisher at common law. … I would not, in the absence of any binding authority, attribute liability at common law to a telephone company or other passive medium of communication, such as an ISP. It is not analogous to someone in the position of a distributor, who might at common law need to prove the absence of negligence
An interesting case to read and very enlightening as one of the few cases that also comments on the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. Nothing in it was terribly contentious and it was correctly decided, Geeklawyer thought, but welcome nonetheless as something to build case law on.
What struck Geeklawyer was that, yet again, here was a litigant in person making an utter arse of himself. In his pleadings Bunt said:
“This is not some tuppeny ha’penny storm in a teacup, this is a truly vast case, the like of which English Defamation Law has never before seen, because of both the scope and nature, as well as the medium. It positively screams out for a Trial, and one way or another it will have one.”
and later on:
” … it is a precursor to a pandemic scale infection that is already widespread and festering just below the surface”
Geeklawyer wonders if Eady J kept a straight face when reading that?
Inevitably, not knowing much about litigation is a severe handicap for such a person who may not have the funds to pay for lawyers, but nonetheless it is a trial (sorry) for all the others involved. With the removal of civil legal aid more and more loony litigants in person are coming before the courts and wasting court time. In the good old days they’d have been given a solicitor to tell them they were going to lose, or told by the Legal Aid people to piss off and get a life. Now everyone has to have their day in court.
It might well not have made a difference in Bunt’s case but nonetheless it’s a real and annoying trend.
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“More generally, I am also prepared to hold as a matter of law that an ISP which performs no more than a passive role in facilitating postings on the internet cannot be deemed to be a publisher”
Hmm. Exactly how passive does that role have to be? I thought ISPs have an obligation to remove postings that they have been informed MAY infringe copyright for example. That would seem to be marginally more than passive, but clearly there’s a whole scale from entirely passive to active posting. Are ISPs obligated, for example, to hire staff at the weekend to ensure prompt removal? On the one hand, the lack of such a requirement provides a window for infringing posts but on the other, the presence of such a requirement would favour larger ISPs to the detriment of their smaller competitors.
I get the impression that this was nothing but an outright attempt at fraud by John Bunt. Anyone who has looked through the newsgroup uk.local.southwest and has read Bunts rantings - in which he invariably brings paedophilia into every subject knows he is not right in the head. He got off light at £40,000 costs. I doubt he will be able to pay.
That Bunty sound loik a roight Debben loonytik….