Godfrey v. Demon Internet Service
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Godfrey v. Demon Internet Service [1999] 4 All ER 342, [2001] QB 201 (QBD) was a landmark court case in the United Kingdom concerning online defamation.
Dr. Laurence Godfrey, a physics lecturer, learned that someone had posted a message to the Usenet discussion group soc.culture.thai. That message, sent by an unknown source, had been forged to appear to have been sent by Dr. Godfrey. On January 17, 1997, Godfrey contacted Demon Internet, one of the major Internet Service Providers in the UK, to inform them of the forged message and ask that it be deleted from Demon Internet's Usenet news server. Demon Internet declined to remove the message, which remained on its servers for ten additional days, at which time it was automatically deleted along with all other old messages. Godfrey sued for libel, citing Demon's failure to remove the forged message at the time of his initial complaint.
Ruling on a pre-trial motion, the court found that an Internet service provider can be sued for libel, and that any transmission by a service provider of a defamatory posting constituted a publication under defamation law. Demon thereafter entered into an out-of-court settlement that paid Godfrey £15,000 plus £250,000 for his legal expenses.
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