Brunker thread closed

BolBill

Why was the Amanda Brunker thread closed in the Television section?

Giblet

Slanderous comments.

EKRIUQ

You can't handle the truth!!! :mad:

EKRIUQ

plus isn't it libel if its in text??

BolBill

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

WhiteWashMan

BolBill wrote:

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

its probably becuase youre a bit of a cúnt to be fair.

sailorboy

you got to love nice jugs lol

BolBill

WhiteWashMan wrote:

its probably becuase youre a bit of a cúnt to be fair.

Really!? Am I ??? Thanks for that, must inform everyone I know now !!!!

lomb

boards arent legally responsible for any comments made by posters. posters are. if brunkers lawyer contacted boards suggesting it b removed then fair enuf, but i reakon mods are jumping the gun on these things and dont know about the law.

seamus

lomb wrote:

boards arent legally responsible for any comments made by posters. posters are. if brunkers lawyer contacted boards suggesting it b removed then fair enuf, but i reakon mods are jumping the gun on these things and dont know about the law.

Incorrect. Boards.ie is liable for everything said.

Crazy but true.

lomb

seamus wrote:

Incorrect. Boards.ie is liable for everything said.

Crazy but true.

how is that possible where does it say that. doesnt make any sense.

seamus

lomb wrote:

how is that possible where does it say that. doesnt make any sense.

No it doesn't make sense, but that's how it is.

A publisher is liable for everything they publish. Boards.ie is liable for every post it publishes.

ecksor

lomb wrote:

boards arent legally responsible for any comments made by posters. posters are. if brunkers lawyer contacted boards suggesting it b removed then fair enuf, but i reakon mods are jumping the gun on these things and dont know about the law.

Can you back up your legal opinions? You seem to be very unsure of yourself after seamus' reply.

lomb

i cant say obviously, but have u guys asked a solicitor?
i personally think a case against an internet forum would not stand up in court unless the forum owners/employees were making libelous statements. again i dont believe a publisher is responsible, its the author who is. legal 101. basically posters arent employees of boards in the way a newspaper journalist is an employee of a newspaper. there is no legally recognised relationships. the terms and conditions of registration are there for the poster to abide by and if there is any legal recourse i persume it is against the author.
i would def seek a good legal opinion on that.

landser

they could be liable.... every case has to be judged on its merits. any publisher can be liable for defamatory comments made by a writer/contributor. good case in point is the recent comments made by some yahoo on Joe Duffy's show regarding a certain minister, an advisor, and some fellatio. RTE could be sued for libel, even though the comments were made on the spur of the moment by a caller unconnected with RTE, as they published his comments.

lomb

landser wrote:

they could be liable.... every case has to be judged on its merits. any publisher can be liable for defamatory comments made by a writer/contributor. good case in point is the recent comments made by some yahoo on Joe Duffy's show regarding a certain minister, an advisor, and some fellatio. RTE could be sued for libel, even though the comments were made on the spur of the moment by a caller unconnected with RTE, as they published his comments.

u say rte could be sued? i seriously doubt it personally.
at he end of the day a journalist working for a newspaper making libelous remarks would make the newspaper responsible. this is a legal relationship going back centuries-vicarious liability.
no such liability applies to chat forums as there is zero relationship between the forum and the posters.

ecksor

lomb wrote:

i cant say obviously, but have u guys asked a solicitor?

Yes.

i personally think a case against an internet forum would not stand up in court unless the forum owners/employees were making libelous statements. again i dont believe a publisher is responsible, its the author who is. legal 101.

You've probably heard of newspapers being sued for their publishings many times. I haven't taken legal 101, what did you learn in it?

basically posters arent employees of boards in the way a newspaper journalist is an employee of a newspaper. there is no legally recognised relationships. the terms and conditions of registration are there for the poster to abide by and if there is any legal recourse i persume it is against the author.

That's very reasonable, but unfortunately you can't make up the law as you go along.

ecksor

lomb wrote:

u say rte could be sued? i seriously doubt it personally.

Any suggestions as to why they felt the need to issue a disclaimer as part of their news broadcasts the next morning?

uberwolf

my understanding is that the law hasn't caught up with the technology yet. It's considered like typical publishing. The journalist has responsibility, but so do does the editor, the board of trustees, the publisher(printers) and the distributors. I know this from having worked in the newspaper world and the trouble we as a student paper had finding publishers.

Further having chatted to Conor Brady (Editor Emeritus of the Irish Times) a printed article is one libel. A internet libel is made every time someone views a post. As editors and publishers boards.ie management are libel for what is posted - even if the chances of it being persued are minimal

lomb

ecksor wrote:

Yes.



You've probably heard of newspapers being sued for their publishings many times. I haven't taken legal 101, what did you learn in it?



That's very reasonable, but unfortunately you can't make up the law as you go along.

newspapers being sued- yes the reason a newspaper is responsible is vicarious liabilityy( employers are responsible for employee negligence- this is an ancient law)

as regards yourselves consulting a solicitor- well not to demean the legal profession but he was just advising u of what u guys should 'probably' do to be safe, after all even a minor lawsuit would shut boards though it is a limited company it would not affect its owners/mods etc,( and could always start again with BOARDS2.ie HAHAHA)

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. i seriously doubt it. only a real defamation solicitor could guide u on this, not some guy who does house transfers. having said all this it mite b easier to delete threads............

landser

vicarious liability might be relevant for boards, but a publisher can be liable for other reasons. it has to do with publishing a defamatory comment. the legal definition of "publication" is not the same as the layman's definition e.g. if you say to me that CJ Haughey murdered pope JP 1 and i repeat that story to another, i can be sued for publication of that slander. also, take the point of a publisher who publishes a book containing defamatory comments. the author is not the agent/servant of the author and the doctrine of vicarious libaliity does not arise (it is a principal in negligence). Yet both the author and publisher can be sued. the former for making the comment, the latter for publishing it

there doesn't have to be a relationship between the person making the comment and the publisher of that comment.

there is also a difference between being open to a suit and being found guilty of defamation, and as i said, that should be taken on case by case basis.

because boards offers a moderated service, they could be liable to any defamed person since the sites are monitored by boards servants/agents. now, boards may well be vicarously liable for the negligent actions of its servants in not closing down a defamatory site/post and also be guilty of defamation in allowing it to be published.

Talliesin

lomb wrote:

again i dont believe a publisher is responsible, its the author who is. legal 101. basically posters arent employees of boards in the way a newspaper journalist is an employee of a newspaper. there is no legally recognised relationships.

Publishers, printers, authors, editors, legal fact-checkers, newsagents and paperboys/girls are all legally liable. Newsagents and paperboys/girls get indemnified by newspapers because otherwise it just wouldn't make sense to take that financial risk and no one would be prepared to do it.

lomb wrote:

i would def seek a good legal opinion on that.

The basic principle of web-based bulletin-board systems was explained to some lawyers. They looked quite pale after that.

lomb

ecksor wrote:

Any suggestions as to why they felt the need to issue a disclaimer as part of their news broadcasts the next morning?

better to be safe than sorry lol. i didnt hear the disclaimer but the usual disclaimer is blah blah blah isnt responsible for the views of any guests and doesnt endorse them, the views of the guests are there own. i know the yank tv stations do this, like cnbc. eg some guy says buy this stock its going to go to the moon but it collapses, does the viewer have a case against cnbc- i doubt it cause they have a disclaimer at the end of EVERY guest interview.
perhaps u should put that in a sticky at the top of each forum.

davej

From the signup rules:

All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of boards.ie/vbulletin, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

This statement seems fairly definitive that Boards is not responsible for messages written by users. In fact it is a condition that you agree to these terms before signing up.

davej

lomb

landser wrote:

because boards offers a moderated service, they could be liable to any defamed person since the sites are monitored by boards servants/agents. now, boards may well be vicarously liable for the negligent actions of its servants in not closing down a defamatory site/post and also be guilty of defamation in allowing it to be published.

this is true i have to say.

ecksor

davej wrote:

This statement seems fairly definitive that Boards is not responsible for messages written by users. In fact it is a condition that you agree to these terms before signing up.

Well, I don't trust anything that claims to sign away anyone's rights without a legal opinion to back it up

Still though, since you have to sign up to them to post but not to read then I doubt it makes any difference anyway, but I wonder if they'd carry any weight if we had to require sign up before reading.

landser

ecksor wrote:

Well, I don't trust anything that claims to sign away anyone's rights without a legal opinion to back it up

Still though, since you have to sign up to them to post but not to read then I doubt it makes any difference anyway, but I wonder if they'd carry any weight if we had to require sign up before reading.

such disclainers can offer a protection to the publisher from being found guilty of defamation, but they do not confer an immunity from suit. further, they are usually pretty ineffectual. you have to prove that, inter alia, not only that the member read it, but also that they understood it

Talliesin

davej wrote:

This statement seems fairly definitive that Boards is not responsible for messages written by users. In fact it is a condition that you agree to these terms before signing up.

At best that gives a statement of intent on the part of boards (so when pleading "don't sue us" they can point to it, as well as deleting posts, publish apologies etc.) and a bit of a chance of suing the person who made the post for any losses caused by being sued (but not great chances, and if they don't have the money or if the case isn't resolved in record-breaking speed it won't matter anyway).

bonkey

lomb wrote:

well not to demean the legal profession but he was just advising u of what u guys should 'probably' do to be safe,

he was, or probably was doing that?

I mean, can you actually offer anything more than your opinion backed up by the statement "legal 101" ???

Personally, I'd trust my (corporate or personal) lawyer over some stranger on the internet telling me that what this lawyer said was incorrect (or maybe incorrect) based on "legal 101".

I mean, you switch from "have you asked a lawyer" to "what is a lawyer gonna be able to tell you anyway"

You go one better, and apparently decide that all the cases of the big players covering their asses is not because they're liable, but because they're just playing safe. Now...if they have nothign to worry about, why are the playing safe? If they have something to worry about....as would seem to be the case...why should boards not take the same precautions?

Oh...and if - as you've also suggested - there has been no case where a bulletn board or its ilk has been sued for libel, then there is no precedence set, and therefore surely it is impossible to conclude that there is no liability. If one cannot conclude that one cannot be held liable, then it would be foolish to err on the side of anything other than caution.

jc

BuffyBot

if u ever get a chance to speak to ur solicitor ask him has there ever been a case in england/ wales

I don't have a lot of time,but briefly:

The UK laws differ from Irish here. If this was boards.co.uk, and it were UK based, it could be classed as a conduit rather than a publisher and may not be liable in the same way. However, if boards.co.uk did nothing to rectify the situation (i.e. they left the post up once they had been notified that it needed to be removed), then they could be in hot water.

bonkey

landser wrote:

such disclainers can offer a protection to the publisher from being found guilty of defamation, but they do not confer an immunity from suit. further, they are usually pretty ineffectual. you have to prove that, inter alia, not only that the member read it, but also that they understood it

Going one step futher, I would say that I don't believe it is actually possible to sign one's legal liability away.

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?

Similarly, I don't believe a publisher can indemnify themselves from publishing libel simply by getting the originator to say "sure, I'll take the blame for both of us". I should point out, however, that I am not a lawyer, and - like Ecksor - have never taken Legal 101.

jc

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..