Two years ago, a Dutch student was filmed on the street while she was obviously drunk and the video appeared on the popular weblog Dumpert.nl. The student was embarrased, sued the website and won. GeenStijl, the owner of Dumpert had to remove the footage to avoid a fine of 150.000 euros. 

Unfortunately, the video can stil be found online, and the student is still demanding its deletion, or a payment of damages. GeenStijl strikes back this week, asking for a court order to make her stop complaining. The judges agreed that the website had done their share. The student has to stop accusing the blog of displaying and spreading the images. When she maintains her complaints about the website, she risks a fine of one thousand euros. This was ruled by a court in Amsterdam, last Thursday.

This decision is very important because a fundamental question was addressed in this case: how far does the responsibility of a website extend, for footage that was originally posted by them, but keeps lingering on the world wide web beyond their control?

In August 2010 the student won a lawsuit against the website. The video was posted by GeenStijl without her permission and became an instant hit. Thousands of people watched the clip, making the students life very difficult. The girl won the lawsuit, as the footage infringed her right of portrait and Geenstijl had the video removed. Despite this, the film is still to be found on the Internet. The student is now demanding money from the website.

The blog, however, claims that the footage has been copied and distributed online by unknown users, acting beyond their control. The appearance of the film on the internet is no longer the responsibility of the editors, they say. 

This week, the Amsterdam judge established that GeenStijl has followed up the court order to remove the video and stop "publishing, reproducing or distributing" the footage. The court agrees with GeenStijl: The fact that the video is still public does not mean that the website can be held liable for it. 

Although the concerns of the girl are fully understandable, the judge had a quite fundamental balancing act to perform. The court acknowledged that it is virtually impossible to completely remove something from the internet. In addition: if one can be held responsible for the fact that information keeps reappearing, even after it was removed on a court’s order, this person would have an almost impossible task. This would be an unreasonably heavy burden on internet media. Indirectly, the Amsterdam court thus chose not to restrict the online freedom of speech in this case.

Without doubt, there will be more such cases in the future. It is going to be interesting to monitor how case law evolves around this issue. How far does liability reach for information that sticks around online without the intent of the publisher? 

Source: Nu.nl