Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Online service provider law is a summary and case law tracking page for laws, legal decisions and issues relating to online service providers, like the Wikipedia and ISPs, from the viewpoint of an OSP considering its liability and customer service issues. See Cyber law for broader coverage of the law of cyberspace. Table of contents 1 United States 1.1 Libel, defamation 1.2 Patent, trade secret 1.3 Copyright 1.3.1 Copyright law protects creativity 1.3.2 Sometimes there are only a few ways to do something 1.3.3 Fair use isn't copyright infringement 1.3.4 Copyright is for a limited time 1.4 Security 2 Australia 2.5 Defamation 2.6 Copyright 3 United Kingdom 3.7 Copyright 3.7.5 Crown copyright 4 Elsewhere 4.8 Copyright 4.9 Japan 5 External links United States The general liability risk within the US is low but it's necessary to review the laws and decisions of all other countries because the extra-territorial application of laws to content hosted in the US is a major issue. Libel, defamation 1991 Cubby v. CompuServe [1] held that CompuServe wasn't the publisher and granted summary judgment in its favor. May 1995 Straton Oakmont Inc. & Daniel Porush v. Prodigy Services Company [1] decision which held that Prodigy was the publisher, because it could delete messages. 1996 Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which states in part 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". Note that this portion of the CDA was not struck down and remains law. November 1997 Zeran v. AOL [1] The CDA protects AOL even though it repeatedly ignored a defamation complaint. 2003 Carafano v. Metrosplash.com (the Star Trek actress case [1]. Providing multiple choice options in forms doesn't invalidate CDA immunity. Even completely ignoring a complaint has been found not to garner liability, so protection appears to be very comprehensive, though it still doesn't stop people from trying. Patent, trade secret Communications Decency Act The CDA again provides comprehensive protection. Copyright Communications Decency Act Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (part of the DMCA) List of leading legal cases in copyright law Protection of the OSP is comprehensive, courtesy of the CDA and OCILLA. When responding to copyright complaints it's helpful to know more about US copyright law to assist in deciding which viewpoint to accept. These are some issues to consider when deciding whether something might infringe copyright. Copyright law protects creativity It doesn't matter how much hard work was involved in building a directory or photographing items unless there is some creativity involved. No creativity and there's no copyright protection at all. Accurate mechanical reproductions (scans; photographs of artifacts or paintings, simple conversions from one image or sound sorage format to another) don't create a new copyright beyond that of what is being copied unless there was some creativity, perhaps in lighting. If the source is not copyrighted, the copy isn't either. Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service 111 S Ct 1282 (1991) [list of telephone numbers & addresses have no © (U.S.)] Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation, 36 F. Supp. 2d 191, US SDNY (1999) photograph of public domain work is not original([1]) Sometimes there are only a few ways to do something The scenes a faire principle covers situations where there is limited scope for doing things in different ways, in much the same way that the merger doctrine covers cases where there's only one way to express something. In those situations something can be almost identical and not be infringing. Web page layouts and designs are likely candidates. Ets-Hokin vs. Skyy Spirits, Inc., et. al [1]. Fair use isn't copyright infringement If a use is fair use, the copyright holder was never granted any rights to control that particular use. The difficulty is in deciding what is fair use and what isn't. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (1994) 510 U.S. 569 (commercial parody is fair use (USA)) Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin (2001) [parody is fair use (11th cir. US Court of Appeals)] Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation, (1999) U.S. App. LEXIS 1786 . Thumbnail images in a search engine are fair use. Inline linking still undecided. Copyright is for a limited time US works published before 1923 or before 1978 without a copyright notice are in the public domain. So are most US federal government works. when US works enter the public domain Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp (2002) attempt to use trademark to keep rights to a public domain work failed Security The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the basic US criminal law covering this area. Australia Defamation Gutnick v. Dow Jones US publisher, liable in Austalia under the relatively new lex loci delicti rule (where the harm happens). Copyright Duration of copyright in Australia United Kingdom Copyright Crown copyright Photographs created before 1 June 1957 have a 50 year copyright period, as do other works except engravings. Photographs published before August 1989 also have a 50 year copyright period. flowchart for determining crown copyright status of artistic works (PDF) Elsewhere Copyright copyright outside the UK has some guidance. Japan On May 27 of 2002, so-called Provider Liability Limitation Law (プロバイダ責任法 or プロバイダ責任制限法) was enacted. It is said that the major purpose of the law is to limit the liability of ISPs, administrators and system operators of bulletin boards, hosting services, and others. The law covers copyright violation, defamation, and obscenity among other things. Regarding those contents that have to be removed, the law holds that the service providers cannot be held liable unless 1) they have the technological means to remove the content and either 2-a) they have the knowledge of the illegal content or 2-b) they could reasonably have gotten to know it. It also specifies circumstances under which service providers may offer personal information of a user to another. Major cases preceding the law include Niftyserve Case, in which a system operator/ moderator of an online forum was found to be liable for not removing a series of defamatory postings. The system operator was noy requested by the defamed participant to remove the content, but had the knowledge of the content. The court found it to be an important ground for the liability. External links AOL Legal, a useful law resource AOL Postmaster, description of AOL's email policies, of use for identifying some anti-spam techniques as normal. This article is from Wikipedia. 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