Judge Recognizes The Obvious: Printer Shouldn't Be Liable For A Book It Prints

Submitted by admin on Thu, 07/24/2008 - 07:27.

Just last week we wrote about the Republican National Committee suing CafePress forselling t-shirt designs from users that include RNC trademarks (the "GOP" phrase and theRNC's elephant). Even though the RNC has backed down, CafePress may be happy to hear that a ruling in a different case seemsto support the idea that CafePress shouldn't be liable. Eric Goldman points us to quite aseries of lawsuits up in Maine between twofamilies. Apparently, the daughters of the families were once friends in high schoolbut had something of... er... a falling out. Take your average "former best friends"dispute and multiply it by about 100. This one involved both girls getting expelled andone eventually being convicted of a hate crime against the other.

The family of the convicted girl believe they've been wronged, and began a publicitycampaign in their own favor. Part of this campaign involved a self-published book tellingtheir side of the story. They tried to find a publisher for it, but publishers (wisely,from the sound of it) wanted no part of it. So, instead, they used a print-on-demandpublisher. The other family, of course, sued everyone involved for defamation, includingthe print-on-demand company, BookSurge.

Without even using section 230 of the CDA, BookSurge has been let off the hook in thecase, as the judge noted that it made no sense to include them in the case:

Because BookSurge does not undertake to edit, review or fact-check any of its publications, it has no means or way of knowing whether defamatory material is contained within the works that it publishes. BookSurge maintained no editorial control over the works published. The responsibilities of BookSurge, which are known to the authors of the works, indicate that it is not an active participant in the creation of any defamation.

This fits with what we've always said about section 230 of the CDA. Even if it didn'texist, it makes legal sense simply not to allow lawsuits against a mere middlemanfor the actions of an end user. It's nice to see the court recognize that here.

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