Appeals court says CDA blocks liability for Internet providers

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=4th&navby=case&no=971523P

Date:         Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:14:23 -0500
From: Patrick Carome <pcarome@WILMER.COM>
Subject:      Fourth Circuit Rules in AOL v. Zeran

        I want to bring to the attention of this group an important
     decision issued yesterday by the United States Court of Appeals for
     the Fourth Circuit in a case that I argued on behalf of America
     Online, Inc.  The Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision in Zeran v.
     America Online, Inc. that has been a frequent topic of discussion in
     this forum.  In particular, the Fourth Circuit held that Section 230
     of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. � 230) "plainly immunizes
     computer service providers like AOL from liability for information
     that originates with third parties."  In an opinion written for a
     unanimous panel by Chief Judge Harvey Wilkinson, the court affirmed a
     ruling by the United States District Court for Eastern District of
     Virginia that is reported at 958 F. Supp. 1124 (1997).  The case
     concerned the question of whether AOL may be liable for allegedly
     being unreasonably slow to remove a series of allegedly defamatory
     messages posted on AOL message boards by an unidentified third party.
     The Court of Appeals based its ruling on Section 230(c)(1), which
     states that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service
     shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
     provided by another information content provider."  The Court of
     Appeals also rejected the argument that Section 230 should not apply
     in this case because the messages at issue had been posted before the
     statute was enacted.