🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Smith wrote:  
  This contract was what "turned the corner" on Compuserve's liability.  
  What I don't myself know, and what I need to ask, is that there may be 
  additional parts of the Cubby ruling that could be beneficial to 
  Prodigy's defense if used, or perhaps stretched to fit.
  
  But my initial assumption is that it doesn't.

Dave --

Yeah, the third-party status of Rumorville is what the court in _Cubby_
seems to hang its hat on to absolve Compuserve of liability. But that's
not all, and I'm sure Prodigy defense attorneys will be arguing
(based on Cubby and other cases) that:

1) Prodigy isn't liable for statements made by users because it has no
   real control over what they say (programmatic obscenity scanners
   notwithstanding); and

2) holding Prodigy responsible will chill the First Amendment free speech
   rights of its subscribers in the online world (because Prodigy would
   have to pre-screen to avoid liability) and is therefore not warranted
   where the defamed person still has a cause of action against the
   allegedly defaming poster.

There's support for these ideas in _Cubby_, but it's far from a slam-dunk
argument.

-Steve Barber