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51 Val. U. L. Rev. 1 (2016-2017)
Online Defamation, Legal Concepts, and the Good Samaritan

handle is hein.journals/valur51 and id is 13 raw text is: 







                            Article

              THE MONSANTO LECTURE

   ONLINE DEFAMATION, LEGAL CONCEPTS,
            AND THE GOOD SAMARITAN

                       Benjamin  C. Zipursky*

                          I. INTRODUCTION

    It was an honor to give the Monsanto Lecture at Valparaiso University
Law   School.  Many   prior  Monsanto   lecturers have  utilized this
opportunity to sketch important theoretical frameworks. I have chosen to
go  in a different direction, one that is studiously down-to-earth. The
Article principally addresses questions regarding the publication element
of the tort of libel and how the doctrine surrounding those questions
ought to be applied to defamation cases that involve the Internet. Most of
today's interesting problems in American   defamation law  involve a
question  about the interaction of a federal statutory provision, the
Communications   Decency Act (CDA)  § 230(c), with the common law of
libel. I argue that the failure to take the doctrinal structure of libel law
seriously has led courts to mangle Internet defamation law, effectively
eliminating - for the Internet only - a fundamental principle called the
republication rule.' This interpretation is alien from what Congress
intended, from any reasonable reading of the relevant statutory text and
from plausible public policy choices in the age of the Internet. As Ninth
Circuit Judge Ronald Gould cautioned:

        Congress wanted  to ensure that excessive government
        regulation did not slow America's expansion  into the
        exciting new frontier of the Internet. But Congress did
        not want this new  frontier to be like the Old West: a
        lawless zone governed by  retribution and mob justice.
        The CDA  does not license anarchy. A person's decision


    Professor of Law and James H. Quinn '49 Chair in Legal Ethics, Fordham University
School of Law. I am grateful to Anita Bernstein, Mark Geistfeld, John Goldberg, Clare
Huntington, Thomas H. Lee, Ethan Leib, Robert Rabin, Aaron Saiger, Anthony Sebok,
Catherine Sharkey, Kevin Stack, Olivier Sylvain, and audiences at Valparaiso University Law
School and University of Western Ontario for helpful comments on previous drafts. Auran
Buckles has provided tremendous research assistance.
1   47 US.C. § 230(c) (2012).
                                 1

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