The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) was the United States Congress's first notable attempt to regulate pornographic material on the Internet. In the 1997 landmark case Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court unanimously struck the act's anti-indecency provisions.
Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., 23 Media L. Rep. 1794, is a 1995 U.S. New York Supreme Court decision holding that online service providers could be held liable for the speech of their users. The ruling caused controversy among early supporters of the Internet, including some lawmakers, leading to the passage of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in 1996.
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Canadian Ass'n of Internet Providers 2 S.C.R. 427, 2004 SCC 45 - also known as the Tariff 22 case - is a leading decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on Internet service provider (ISP) liability for copyright infringement. The Court found that there is no liability for information found in web caches. An ISP's liability depends on whether it limits itself to "a conduit" or a content-neutral function and is not dependent on where the ISP is located.
The Information Technology Act, 2000 is an Act of the Indian Parliament notified on 17 October 2000. It is the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce.
The Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 is a Malaysian statute governing the usage of printing presses and the printing, importation, production, reproduction, publishing and distribution of publications in Malaysia. It replaced the Printing Presses Act 1948 and the Control of Imported Publications Act 1958. A controversial amendment was made after Operation Lalang, where all printing presses were required to renew their licence annually through the Ministry of Home Affairs, seen as a move to curtail press freedom.The Act was subsequently amended in 2012 to remove the requirement for annual licence application and the government's 'absolute discretion' over permits, and reinstated judicial overview.
Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on June 9, 1980 which affirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court in a case that arose out of a free speech dispute between the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, California, and several local high school students.
Information technology law concerns the law of information technology, including computing and the internet. It is related to legal informatics, and governs the digital dissemination of both (digitized) information and software, information security and electronic commerce aspects and it has been described as "paper laws" for a "paperless environment". It raises specific issues of intellectual property in computing and online, contract law, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction.
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
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.
Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal. Content is removed by the host following notice. Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infringement, as well as for libel and other illegal content. In United States and European Union law, notice and takedown is mandated as part of limited liability, or safe harbour, provisions for online hosts. As a condition for limited liability online hosts must expeditiously remove or disable access to content they host when they are notified of the alleged illegality.
Jasti Chelameswar is the former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He retired on 22 June 2018 as the second most senior supreme court judge. Earlier, he was the chief justice of the Kerala High Court and the Gauhati High Court. He was also one of the four judges who held a controversial press conference against Chief Justice Dipak Misra.
Rohinton Fali Nariman is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Before being elevated as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. He was appointed the Solicitor General of India on 23 July 2011. He also served as a member of the Bar Council of India. He was designated as a Senior Counsel by Chief Justice Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah in 1993 at the early age of 37.
Save Your Voice is a movement against internet censorship in India. It was founded by cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, journalist Alok Dixit, socialist Arpit Gupta and Chirag Joshi in January 2012. The movement was initially named "Raise Your Voice", before it was renamed. The movement started from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, under the frontier-ship of the movement's four founders; with a "Langda March" at Ujjain. The movement opposes the Information Technology Act of India and demands democratic rules for the governance of Internet. The campaign is targeted at the rules framed under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
MouthShut.com versus Union of India was a writ petition filed by Mouthshut.com, a consumer review social media company, and its founder Faisal Farooqui, to protect freedom of speech and expression on the Internet. In this case, they challenged Sec. 66A and sought modifications or nullification of IT Rules and Section 79 of the Information Technology Act of India. This case was pivotal in determining the responsibility of intermediaries for online speech in India. On 24 March 2015, the Supreme Court issued a judgment in favor of the petitioner(s) and nullified Sec. 66A, deeming it unconstitutional. It also ordered the reading down of various other sections of the IT Act, including section 79 and the IT Rules. Consequently, individuals are free to post anything online, and publishers cannot be compelled to remove content without a court order. This decision applies to all user-generated content on the Internet.
Shreya Singhal is an Indian born lawyer. Her fight against Section 66A of the Information Technology Act of 2000 in 2015 brought her to national prominence in India.
Adultery was a criminal offence under Chapter XX of the Indian Penal Code until it was quashed by the Supreme Court of India on 27 September 2018 as unconstitutional. The law dated from 1860. Under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, which was the section dealing with adultery, a man who had consensual sexual intercourse with the wife of another man without that husband's consent or connivance could have been punished for this offence with up to five years imprisonment, a fine or both. As such, the concept of adultery targeted the act of sexual intercourse occurring between a married woman and a man other than her husband, in which case the man would be guilty whereas the wife was exempt from punishment. When a married man had sexual intercourse with an unmarried woman, no party was punishable; while if a married man had sexual intercourse with a married woman other than his wife, the married man's crime was against the husband of that married woman, not against the man's own wife towards whom he had been unfaithful. Adultery was only prosecutable upon the complaint of the aggrieved husband.
Mishi Choudhary is a technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist working in the United States and India. She is the senior vice president and general counsel of Virtru, a role she started in 2022. Prior to that role, Mishi was the Legal Director of the Software Freedom Law Center as well as the Founder of SFLC.in. SFLC.in brings together lawyers, policy analysts and technologists to fight for digital rights, produces reports, and studies on the state of the Indian internet, also has a productive legal arm. Under her leadership, SFLC.in has conducted landmark litigation cases, petitioned the government of India on freedom of expression and internet issues, and campaigned for WhatsApp and Facebook to fix a feature of their platform that has been used to harass women in India.
Contributory copyright infringement is a way of imposing secondary liability for infringement of a copyright. It is a means by which a person may be held liable for copyright infringement even though he or she did not directly engage in the infringing activity. In the United States, the Copyright Act does not itself impose liability for contributory infringement expressly. It is one of the two forms of secondary liability apart from vicarious liability. Contributory infringement is understood to be a form of infringement in which a person is not directly violating a copyright but induces or authorises another person to directly infringe the copyright.
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) is an Indian non-governmental organisation that conducts advocacy on digital rights and liberties, based in New Delhi. IFF files petitions and undertakes advocacy campaigns to defend online freedom, privacy, net neutrality, and innovation.
The Information Technology Rules, 2021 is secondary or subordinate legislation that suppresses India's Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2011. The 2021 rules have stemmed from section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and are a combination of the draft Intermediaries Rules, 2018 and the OTT Regulation and Code of Ethics for Digital Media.
Collateral censorship is a type of censorship where the fear of legal liability is used to incentivize a private party who is acting as an intermediary to censor the speech of another private party. Examples of intermediaries include publishers, journalists, and online service providers. Regardless of the merits of the speech in question, holding intermediaries liable may induce them to censor a large amount of additional speech in an attempt to avoid liability. Also, an intermediary is likely to be more willing to censor than the original speaker would be, since it is not as invested in promoting the speech in question.
