Legal Issues Facing Online Communities Dominic Bray, Sarah Stone and Paul MasseyPaul Massey 12 July

Overview of Presentation Potential Legal Liabilities for service providers Exemptions to liability for service providers Moderation Terms and Conditions – notice and takedown procedure Ownership of IP Data Protection

Potential legal liabilities for Online Communities Defamation  The publication of a statement which tends to lower the claimant in the estimation of right thinking members of society.  Is the intermediary a publisher at common law?  If not a publisher: no liability  If it is a publisher, consider:  Innocent dissemination under Defamation Act  Exemptions under E-Commerce Regulations – mere conduit, caching and hosting

Bunt V. Tilley, Hancox, Stevens, AOL, Tiscali and BT [2006] EWHC 407 (QB)  AOL not a publisher. Passive involvement does not incur liability as a publisher. There must be knowing involvement in publication of words.  ISPs argued exemption under the E-Commerce Regulations and under the defence of innocent dissemination in the Defamation Act.

Statutory Offences  Obscenity  Obscene Publications Act 1959  Obscene Publications Act 1964  Contempt of court  Contempt of Court Act 1981  Harassment  Protection from Harassment Act 1996  Sex discrimination Act 1975  Race Relations Act 1976  Other offences

Primary acts of copyright infringement  Copying  Issuing copies to the public  Perform, show or play the work in public  Communicate the work to the public  (i) broadcasting the work; and  (ii) making available to the public by electronic transmission in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them  Make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation  Authorisation

Authorisation of Copyright Infringement  A developing area of law and not yet tested in the UK in relation to online copyright infringement.  CBS v Amstrad (1988)  A high water mark: no contributory infringement where a device is “capable of substantial non-infringing use”  US Cases  Napster – contributory and vicarious infringement  Grokster- introduced doctrine of inducement of copyright infringement

Australian case law - Kazaa  Guidance on what constitutes authorisation: 1. the extent of the person's power to prevent infringement; 2. the nature of the person authorising and the person performing the infringing act; and 3. whether the person alleged to be authorising took reasonable steps to prevent infringement  Warnings to users and an End User Licence Agreement were ineffective in preventing infringement.  Technical measures could have been adopted to reduce infringement but were not.  Kazaa actively encouraged users to increase levels of sharing activities.

Viacom v YouTube Remedies Sought  Declaration of Infringement:  direct copyright infringement and authorisation  secondary infringement: inducement, contributory and vicarious infringement.  Permanent injunction requiring YouTube to employ reasonable methodologies to prevent or limit infringement of Viacom’s copyright.  Maximum damages for past and present infringement plus YouTube’s profits (estimated at least $1bn).

Viacom v YouTube Viacom’s Arguments  Viacom claim YouTube provide more than hosting facilities:  Copies content to servers.  Creates thumbnails.  File sharing and embedding technology increases potential for infringement.  Control its site and could remove material infringing copyright. Terms and conditions reserve the right to remove material. For example, YouTube remove pornographic material.  YouTube encourage infringement:  Tags and search features enable easy identification of copyright material.  No steps taken to remove infringing material until take-down notice received.  Only the specific urls identified will be blocked. Many copies not removed.  Friends feature allows private areas where copyright infringement may take place undetected.

Exemptions and defences for service providers Dominic Bray

EXEMPTIONS AND DEFENCES Statutory Defences eCommerce Regulations Defamation (Innocent Dissemination) Caching No knowledge or reason to believe Reasonable care Contempt of Court Act Obscene Publications Act Reasonable care? Publisher under The Act? Publisher at common law? No reason to believe causing or contributing Mere conduit Hosting Qualifying Service? Take-down on notice Host? Information Society Service? No control No knowledge Conditions

Exemptions & defences for service providers  USA - ‘Safe Harbour’ under Digital Millennium Copyright Act  UK exemptions under E-Commerce Regulations 2002  Innocent dissemination under Defamation Act 1996  Statutory Defences re obscene publications, contempt of court, etc

E-Commerce Regulations Three categories of protected activity/service:  Mere Conduit (Regulation 17)  Caching (Regulation 18)  Hosting (Regulation 19)  If exempt – no liability for service provider for third party activity on its service.

Hosting Exemption Reg 19 E-Commerce Regs  Where an information society service is provided which consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service, the service provider … shall not be liable for damages … as a result of that storage where … (a)The service provider: (i) does not have actual knowledge of unlawful activity or information … (ii) upon obtaining such knowledge … acts expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information, and (b)The recipient of the service was not acting under the authority or control of the service provider.

Hosting exemption Two areas to consider:  Is the community a qualifying service?  Is it an “Information Society Service”?  Is it an host?  Does the community satisfy the conditions?  No actual knowledge of infringement or reason to believe.  Take down on notice.  User not under control of service provider.

Is the service a qualifying service? (1)  Is the community an “Information Society Service”?  “Any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by means of electronic equipment, for the processing … and storage of data and at the individual request of a recipient of a service.”  Provided for remuneration?

Is the service a qualifying service? (2)  Is the community service provider an “host”?  A service “which consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service.”  Compare ISP web-hosting v online communities  What if the service does more than simply store information?  ‘Lafesse’ (Societe Lambert Anonyme) v MySpace, France  Viacom v YouTube and FAPL v YouTube – challenge to YouTube’s assertion that it is a ‘host’ under DMCA.

Hosting – knowledge of unlawful activity  The service provider shall not be liable … where the service provider:  Does not have actual knowledge … or is not aware of facts or circumstances from which it would have been apparent … that the activity or information was unlawful; or  Upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information  (Regulation 19(a))

Hosting – knowledge of unlawful activity (2)  Knowledge of what?  Knowledge of the actual infringement/unlawful activity; or  Is general knowledge of circumstances enough (Viacom v YouTube)?  Has service provider received adequate notice of unlawful activity?

Hosting – Notice and Takedown  Requirement to act “expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information” on obtaining knowledge (Regulation 19(a)(ii)).  Knowledge requirement + obligation to remove are legal basis of notice and takedown procedure.  Similar to innocent dissemination defence to defamation.

E-Commerce Regulations – summary  Is the service an information society service?  Probably.  Is the service a hosting service?  Maybe.  Does the service provider have knowledge?  Notice? Moderation?  Does the service provider comply with notice and takedown?  Put in place a clear policy and follow it.

Specific Defences  Defamation – innocent dissemination  Obscene Publications – knowledge and belief  Contempt of Court – knowledge and belief

Defamation – innocent dissemination(1)  Is community a publisher at common law (Bunt v Tilley & Ors)?  If not, no liability  If publisher, then consider Section 1 Defamation Act

Defamation – innocent dissemination (2)  Defence if the community:  Is not the author editor or publisher (as defined)  Took reasonable care in relation to the publication  Didn’t know and had no reason to believe that it caused or contributed to the defamatory statement

Innocent dissemination (3)  Is the service provider a “publisher” under the Act?  Publisher” means commercial publisher: “a person whose business is issuing material to the public...” (Section 1(2)).  Not a publisher if only the “operator or provider of access to a communication system through which the statement is transmitted or made available” (Section 1(3)(e)).

Innocent dissemination (4)  Did the provider take reasonable care?  Includes looking at whether provider complied with notice.  Godfrey v Demon – Demon failed to take down following notice.  Bunt v Tilley – ISPs did take reasonable care – the notice was inadequate.

Innocent Dissemination (5)  Did the community know or have reason to believe that it caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement?  notice?  moderation?  other circumstances?

Moderation  Common theme of defences and exemptions:  Take reasonable care but:  Do not do more than ‘hosting’  Do not be a publisher or editor  Do not have actual knowledge  So what do you do?  Damned if you moderate, damned if you don’t?

Moderation – minimising risk  Liability control and quality control  Brand protection, user experience, user safety  Consider:  What type of community is it?  Who will access the service?  What content would you expect?  What resources do you have?  What risk are you willing to accept  What are your priorities?

Moderation  Options:  No moderation  Pre-vet all material  Moderate after posting?  Alert moderation  24/7 or periodic?  Third party providers

Online communities - terms and conditions Sarah Stone

Terms of Service / Terms of Use  Key risk management terms  right to remove / block access to content  notification procedure for alleged unlawful content  sanctions - warning, suspension, account termination  financial protection - indemnity (value against user? enforceable?)  IP ownership / rights to use  Data protection / privacy

Notice & take-down procedure  Best practice: What should the notice contain?  clear description of disputed content and why complainant believes it is unlawful  details of URL or other location information  complainant's contact details – verify identity  statement by complainant  info provided is accurate  complainant has right to complain  good faith belief that disputed content is not authorised / lawful OR it is untrue and harmful to their reputation (defamation)  Easy to find and use

IP ownership / rights to use  Service provider ownership  MMOGs eg., World of Warcraft, City of Heroes  User ownership with service provider right to use  Second Life: participants own content they create in-world, to the extent they have such rights under applicable law  Licence scope - in-service (MySpace) / beyond (MTV Flux)  Open-source - 'community' rights to copy, modify, distribute  open source software communities eg., Linux  Channel 4 Fourdocs – Creative Commons licence

Data protection – collection methods  user registration - provide personal information  business model - open exchange of personal information eg., LinkedIn, FaceBook  use of 'hidden' technologies to gather information about user activity (eg., cookies, web beacons)  User profiling - targeted advertising as a means of monetising online communities

Data protection - compliance  Register as a data controller - failure to notify is a criminal offence (  Privacy policy  inform users of the purposes for which their personal information will be processed ('fair and lawful processing’)  Use of cookies, web beacons; how to disable (PEC Regulations)  data sharing with third parties – who, why  Other issues  no data export outside EEA unless consent / other derogations  targeted advertising on-site vs marketing sent to individual – compliance with PEC Regulations

Data protection - risk of getting it wrong  UK - general approach, weak enforcement powers  Fines (up to £5,000), compensation, rectification or destruction of data Compared to  US - sectoral approach, large penalties  Xanga.com - social networking site fined US$1m by FTC for breaching Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by allowing children under 13 to sign up for the service without getting their parent's consent

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