# Hamburg court: Forum operators are liable for comments

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hamburg-court-forum-operators-are-liable-for-comments/374869>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 1, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hamburg-court-forum-operators-are-liable-for-comments/374869 "2006-10-01T20:13:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hamburg-court-forum-operators-are-liable-for-comments/374869/1 "2006-10-01T20:13:08Z")

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I am sorry if this has been discussed before. I checked and couldn’t find a thread. Also this is not exactly recent news, but I found it while searching for something else.

If find the decission astoundingly stupid, but that is just me.

> [@](#):
>
> After more than four months, the first-instance district court of Hamburg has handed down its written statement on its widely reported ruling of December 02, 2005 on liability for forums. **The statements refers to web forums as an “especially dangerous feature.”** Those who operate such a source of trouble, the court argued, must be held especially liable.
> 
> The previous legislation held that forum providers were only liable for illegal content that they had knowledge of and were not obligated to actively search for such; now, the judges in Hamburg have overruled that interpretation. Providing Internet forums is, they argued, a type of business operation. Operators therefore have to be able to **hire enough staff with legal training** to be able to handle such operations. **“If the number of forums and comments in them is so great that the opposing party does not have the staff or technical means to review comments before they are published, they either have to expand their in-house resources or […] reduce the scope of their business operations,”** the first-instance district court of Hamburg argued.  
> [Linkoo](http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/72085)

It sounds to me like the judge(s) in question must be largelly ignorant of how public forums work. Is there any way this can be justifiable? Have there being any changes in public forums in Germany? Could there be any liability for companies or individuals whose servers are not in Germany? Anyone aware of updates to this story. I couldn’t find anything.

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**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hamburg-court-forum-operators-are-liable-for-comments/374869/2 "2006-10-01T20:19:34Z")

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By the way, according to the register moderators are also liable for content in their forums. Which makes it even more bizarre.

> [@](#):
>
> [German court rules moderators liable for forum comments](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/21/moderator_liable_for_comments/)  
> Legal experts now fear that because of the ruling, lawyers will be seeking damages from moderators who they believe are breaking the law.

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**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hamburg-court-forum-operators-are-liable-for-comments/374869/3 "2006-10-01T21:01:17Z")

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[QUOTE=Mighty\_Girl]  
Anyone aware of updates to this story. I couldn’t find anything.  
[/QUOTE]  
The forum operators appealed the decision and in 8/06 it was modified so that the operators are only required to react to known illegal content, just as everyone thought before. Unfortunately I haven’t found an English article on the most recent result so far.