First things first, a little information: Heise, a german publisher for computer magazines is also hosting a news ticker on their site, as well as the option for the reader to comment on the news. On 08/05/2005, they made a posting about some dialer who included a trojan virus. Readers then published a script through the comments to increase traffic on the mentioned server. The county court Hamburg then made a injuction and came to the following conviction:
Forums as well as any other institution with the option to comment on the content is considered dangerous. As an operator of such a system, you are responsible to take care in advance about the writings made on the system.
In other words, I have to take care that you, the reader, don’t write any bullshit in the comments. I also have to take care that if you do write bullshit, you have to be clearly identifiable. Impossible? Absolutely. I could as well made a link on the front page to a prepared dissuasion… Okay, my blog isn’t the best example. Imagine a blog like Spreeblick, one of Germanys biggest blogs (about 40.000 visitors a day), and there’s this one idiot providing false informations and sign it e.g. with a company’s name. It’s not the writer who’s responsible, it’s the operator of the blog.
Even before the grounds of the conviction, which was released five days ago (and can be seen here), lawyers already started to dissuade operators of forums, which they didn’t like. In case they didn’t remove the offending postings, they have to pay a fee which is always above 10.000€. Ridiculous? Absolutely. The conviction is like a license to print money…
Heise already appealed to court, but I’m pretty much sure that this will have an impact on the german blogosphere, even if they win. Bloggers now have to be very careful and have to exam every comment which appears on their blogs (which, in some cases, is so time consuming that it’s almost impossible). For some forums, this could mean the end; no one is capable of checking 1.000 posts or more a day. Or willing to do so, as this destroys the whole principle behind a forum.
These are sad days for the german blogosphere. Well, not for me, as I have a rather small blog with little amount of comments. But I hope that the great ones will still remain as blogs – and not a traditional website with no option to participate.
