Cyberlaw/Day 3

The Net Security Problem

• Is it just about viruses, or does it raise a more fundamental problem?

Defamation overview

• Defamation = false statement + conveyed to 3rd party + harm to reputation of π
• Remedies:
  • Damages
  • Injunctions (worrisome, given 1st Amendment implications)

On to intermediaries

• Hourglass architecture
• Cloud
• types of intermediaries:
  • publisher
    • liability here = Pottery Barn rule. You take responsibility for what's offered to you by a third party. You (e.g., a newspaper) are on the hook for publishing a letter to the editor as if you had drafted it yourself. There's some wiggle room if you properly frame the defamatory material. But generally this creates a pretty strict editing regime.
  • bookseller/distributor
    • liability here = much harder to apply. Unless you're in a situation where the distributor is clearly on notice that they're selling defamatory material, you're pretty safe.
• What to ask of intermediaries? (See Officer Mason example, from Small Town Justice.)
  • (1) Stand in the shoes of bad people.
  • (2) Help identify the bad people.