RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a common way for
publishers to make their content available to others. Individuals
use RSS readers to see the latest content from their favourite
sites without needing to visit each site. Websites can also display
the RSS output of other sites.
A French court, the Tribunal De Grande Instance De
Nanterre, has said that three websites, Planete Soft,
Aadsoft and Lespipoles, are liable for invasion
of privacy because of articles published by other people but
available via RSS from their sites.
The articles concerned the director of Oscar winning La Vie En
Rose and actress Sharon Stone and were taken via RSS from publisher
Gala.fr. Dahan's lawyer Emmanuel Asmar told OUT-LAW Radio that as well as a successful suit
against Gala, they also won cases against the three RSS feed
publishers.
"[The RSS] link provides the link plus a short summary of some
content," said Asmar. "We won the judgment. We won first on the
original author of the information and secondly on the link. They
were sentenced because they published the link."
"The RSS feeds in question took in effect the essential features
of the article at gala.fr, i.e. the rumour of the relationship
between the pursuer and the American actress Sharon Stone," said
the judgment, according to a translation by OUT-LAW.COM.
"The defender has, in signing up to the order and organising
them according to their themes, acted as an editor and must
therefore assume responsibility for the information which is
displayed on his own site."
"In this particular case the RSS reader displayed information
not only made up of a simple link but both the title and the
snippet of the information appeared: 'Sharon Stone and Olivier
Dahan, the star has a romantic embrace with the director'. This was
sufficient to constitute an attack on his private life," it
said.
The publishers of the RSS feed were ordered to pay between €500
and €800 plus €1,000 in costs for their liability in breaching
France's strict privacy laws.
The principle of liability for RSS-fed material, though, could
apply in France to any other law-breaking material, such as
defamatory articles.
Asmar is the lawyer who won another recent groundbreaking case
when he represented Kylie Minogue's ex boyfriend Olivier Martinez
in another privacy case. In that case two bloggers and a website
publisher were held liable for privacy invasion because they
published simple links to stories which were found to invade the
actor's privacy.
Media law expert Kim Walker of Pinsent Masons, the law firm
behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that there has not been a test case in the
UK on link liability.
A Court of Appeal ruling from 1894 could influence courts,
though. It found that a man who stood by a roadside placard drawing
the attention of passers by to it was liable for its defamatory
content, even though he did not create or erect the placard.
"I think it's a very good analogy. English common law is based
on precedents and that is clearly a precedent so it is the sort of
case that would be brought up and argued," said Walker.
