"The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can't be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online publishers...
'One-way news publications have editors and fact-checkers, and they're not just selling information -- they're selling reliability,' said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'But on blogs or e-mail lists, people aren't necessarily selling anything, they're just engaging in speech. That freedom of speech wouldn't exist if you were held liable for every piece of information you cut, paste and forward.'" - Wired
Gothamist appreciates that the judicial system realizes that rag-tag teams of bloggers, while determined to be right all the time (and you know how bloggers love being right), can't be responsible for knowing all the facts at any given time We aren't taking this as carte blanche to be libelous or slander others, but more as encouragement to continue our form of cut-and-paste commentary.
[Via Metafilter]
