USA: A federal district court in Illinois has ruled in David Blockowicz, et al., v. Joseph David Williams, et al., that a website is not required to remove defamatory remarks despite an injunction against the persons who posted the remarks on the site. Wishing to avoid the immunity provision of the CDA, the plaintiffs sued the actual authors of the defamatory remarks rather than the websites that posted the remarks. The court issued an injunction requiring the plaintiffs to remove the remarks, but the plaintiffs were unable to contact the defendants. The plaintiffs therefore moved for third-party enforcement of the injunction against the website, ripoff.com. But the court was unpersuaded that the website – despite Terms of Service that included a copyright claim to all posted comments, a statement that comments would never be removed, and an indemnification clause – should be considered an aider and abettor of the defamatory remarks, and therefore refused to enforce the injunction against it.
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