A "properly framed registration agreement" is worth nothing and will avoid nothing.

For example, if someone posts on my forum that <insert top footballers name here> is having a gay relationship with <insert top footballers name here> and it isn't true, my registration agreement isn't worth anything if he wants to take me to court. Under UK law I am considered the publisher in a similar way to a newspaper etc, just because my reg agreement says it's nothing to do with me doesn't change the law.

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Ben there is always a legal loophole that one can use and this is some thing that a lawyer specializing in the cyber laws of UK would be able to best advise you on. That’s why I said, “Properly framed registration agreement” can save you from headaches. What would work best for you is some thing for you and your legal representative to decide.

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We have had legal advice and as a result ensure we don't host discussions that have the potential to come back and bite us.

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Well even if the worst happens and you are taken to court, the likelyness is that the judge will just say remove this from your site and implace more rules, Anyway, if a person wants to contact you they will need to go to extreem lengths to get your home address so you can be contacted by a lawyer, even then they are most likely to just say remove this.

Its only when you refuse to remove content when flares start to happen, otherwise your drop dead safe, depending on your forum content of course.

Make sure that you do emplace disclaimer and re post up the registration agreement so people can re read it, Also make sure in your footer you put a 'All content is rights of their respective owners and (your company), staff or sponsors take no responsibilty for their post content and anything deemed against the rules will be removed, if you want to bring something to the Teams attention please do so here'

Something along those lines, as people have said, you can still be sued, but its just another barrier they have to break down

andy

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Andy
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I saw alot of forums that they are sharing illlegal content such as movie, music, software ... or even torrent sites. Do they get sue?

Ultimately it's a question of risk tolerance. A forum operator who permits posting of material that's protected by copyright isn't likely to be sued unless the material isn't removed upon notice. What the operator will have to deal with, even if the material is removed, are subpoenas for posters' identities and personal information.

This is very much a problem on stock forums where companies of (ahem) lesser integrity use lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits to intimidate those who would post information which may expose fraud or mismanagement.

There are issues of notification here as well. If you get a subpoena for a member's information, I don't believe you are legally bound to notify the member, but it's a morally proper thing to do so that the member may opt to quash the action. Without a motion to quash the subpoena, an operator may be held in contempt of court for failure to comply.

Forum operators in the US are generally protected by law from liability for the content of member's posts. The problem is that if a scam company actually names an operator in a suit, the operator must bear legal costs just to have the case against him thrown out on the basis of this immunity.

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well if you have copyrighted content i would think that the people will ask you to remove the page that is causing them issues
if you dont delete the page they asked you to
then there could be a possible chance that you can get sued
i think

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Section 230 c

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

PROTECTION FOR `GOOD SAMARITAN' BLOCKING AND SCREENING OF
OFFENSIVE MATERIAL-
`(1) TREATMENT OF PUBLISHER OR SPEAKER- No provider or user
of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by another
information content provider.
`(2) CIVIL LIABILITY- No provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be held liable on account of--
`(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to
restrict access to or availability of material that the
provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious,
filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise
objectionable, whether or not such material is
constitutionally protected; or
`(B) any action taken to enable or make available to
information content providers or others the technical means
to restrict access to material described in paragraph

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