A Completely Unfair Court Ruling

The web hosting world just might have received the most shocking news it will have all year. TechDirt reports that a US court has decided that a web host can be held liable for a hosted website that sells counterfeit goods. Even though eBay, it is noted, cannot be held liable when somebody uses eBay to do the exact same thing.

What?

This is wrong on so many levels, that it would have to get overturned. There is a very handy analogy we could draw here: Should a landlord be held responsible if their tenant was found to be breaking the law? Should a commercial landlord be held responsible if a business that rented office space is found to have been engaging in criminal or even civilly violating activities?

Now, don't get us wrong. Web hosts do frequently take action against clients who are violating laws that are more on their jurisdiction. Spamming, for instance. Hate sites and fraud, for another. There's nothing wrong with expecting a web host to intervene in those cases.

But when you come down to violating copyright and trademark, who could possibly expect a web host to even know? Say you host party A, and party B claims that party A is violating their patent or whatever and demands a take-down. Before the case is settled in court! Now, if the host doesn't take down party A, they're liable. But if the host does take down party A and party A later successfully defends the claim, then party A now has a claim against their host for taking down their site without cause. There's a reason why computer geeks choose to be computer geeks instead of going into police work.

Peter Brittain
Perth Web Hosting