Wikipedia Wins Defamation Case

Raul654 writes "Yesterday, a French judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation for defamation. The judge found that 'Web site hosts cannot be liable under civil law because of information stored on them if they do not in fact know of their illicit nature.' According to the inquirer: 'Three plaintiffs were each seeking 69,000 euros ($100,000) in damages for invasion of their privacy after their homosexuality was revealed on the website.'"

I wonder how far this could be applied

[Huntr]

Specifically, this part of the Reuters writeup:

"Web site hosts cannot be liable under civil law because of information stored on them if they do not in fact know of their illicit nature," Binoche said in his written ruling released at the Paris civil law court earlier this week.

Moreover, Web site hosts are not legally bound to monitor or investigate the origin of the information they store, he added.

IANAL, but I wonder if this could have ramifications in the file-sharing world..

Applicability to the US

[Raul654]

(As the original submitter of this article) For the applicability in US law, you guys might want to listen to this session recording [archive.org] from Wikimania 2006.

When "defamation" include the truth?

[PortHaven]

If it was posted they were homosexuals and they weren't, that'd be defamation. But it states their "homosexuality was revealed on wikipedia". Which leads me to believe they are in fact homosexual.

So how does revealing the truth equate to defamation?

Re:When "defamation" include the truth?

[king-manic]

So how does revealing the truth equate to defamation?

This isn't a universal defence. In many countries (for example Canada), you can be successfully sued for defamation even if your accusations/statements are true. Defamation is classified as statements lowering the "esteem" of a person. True of false. Defamation must consider Context and must meet reasonable standards. So a single story on how Paris Hilton is a slut may be okay, two dozen of them may allow a successful defamation law suit.

Re:I wonder how far this could be applied

[ddrichardson]

IANAL either, but this line intrigued me:

But a judge rejected their demands in a ruling reached on Monday, arguing that "the Wikimedia Foundation's responsibility ... has not been clearly established," a decision welcomed by the foundation.

This suggests to me that that plaintiff simply didn't provide a good enough case against Wikimedia, rather than a decision that could become precedent. I'm sure someone with a better grasp of law can correct me.

Re:When "defamation" include the truth?

[kabocox]

If it was posted they were homosexuals and they weren't, that'd be defamation. But it states their "homosexuality was revealed on wikipedia". Which leads me to believe they are in fact homosexual.

So how does revealing the truth equate to defamation?

Revealing something that a person considers private information and putting it in wikipedia or another format for the entire world to see should be legally wrong. If it isn't illegal today, it will be.

For example, my favorite color is green. That's a fact. I don't want some one to look me up in wikipedia and find out my sexual preferences or my favorite color or anything else that I consider private information. If "defamation" is the nearest existing law that they can use to slap them with, so be it. Wikipedia and those that actually did add/edit those articles should be held accountable for releasing private information. It doesn't matter if the information is true or not; it is the fact that the information was released to the world wide public and could be used in a negative manner against the person.

I have lots of fetishess that I like. The only person that is privy to that information is my wife. If my fetishes ever show up listed in wikipedia, then I'd have to sue them as well. It doesn't matter if the information is correct or not. What matters is that I didn't give my permission for the information to be released and is shouldn't be published.

I wish a judge would heavily fine Wikipedia for this. Wikipedia is not an ISP. An ISP has no idea what data is going through there bandwith. Wikipedia has editors and actually edits and removes lots of user generated content. It's a totally different thing! Wikipedia is trying to use an ISP get out of jail free card. The said thing is that it'll work.

Forced outing

[athloi]

This is where a conventional encyclopedia, with experienced editors, outshines wikipedia (one of the many places). An experienced editor will usually reject forced outing of people, or revealing that they're gay when they'd rather keep that private, because it rarely adds to the factual content of the article and can interrupt the parts of their lives that should be private. Shame on wikipedia. Although I agree with the courts, I see this forced outing as a bad call for wikipedia to have made.