desertrat wrote:Appeals Court Says Having 'Dirt' In Your Domain Name Doesn't Remove Safe Harbor Protections
This is one of those cases where a lower court judge made a stupid ruling based on poor reasoning and a basic misunderstanding of the law. This sort of thing happens fairly frequently, which just goes to show that the law is too complicated for even people with enough legal experience to attain a position as a lower court judge. Actually Safe Harbor Protections are pretty easy to understand and the need for such provisions should be obvious to anyone who values freedom of speech. Without such provisions few people would be willing to host online forums such as TronaNews and social media sites such as Twitter would not exist (or at least would have strict rules which would make it not terribly interesting).
A lower court judge can't get by with simply understanding the law when it comes to laws regulating what people do on the internet. The judge must also have some understanding of how computers, networks, and websites work. Without this "technical" knowledge judges are unable to properly interpret and apply law. The problem here is that judges tend to not be the types that understand science and technology. They are adept at comprehension, regurgitation, and oration (BS), but not so good at understanding how complex systems work, problem solving, or pattern recognition. However, they are able to insert themselves (and unnecessary laws) into lots of situations and make a lot of money as a result.