Demon suit heads for the high court

NEWS Demon Internet is one step closer to being held liable for defamation following a high court ruling earlier today. Dr Laurence Godfrey, a London-based nuclear physicist, says he was defamed by a Canadian student, who forged messages from Godfrey and posted them on a Demon-hosted newsgroup in 1995. Now the scientist says Demon should be held liable as it did not remove the messages from the soc.culture.thai newsgroup. Mr Justice Morland ruled that the case should now proceed in London's High Court. Demon is set to appeal though, claiming that ISPs cannot monitor every item posted to the newsgroups they host. Civil liberties organisation Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK), believes the decision will have a profound effect on 'cyber-speech' and that UK ISPs will be forced to monitor and censor third party content going through their servers. The ruling, if not reversed on appeal, could make the UK a very hostile place for network development in the Information Age, according to the organisation.