This is trouble brewing for quite a few sites, but I'd like to think GOG's community hasn't degraded so much that it'd be an issue for them.

Unless of course tinyE gets loose- oh... crap... it already did. Well, we're boned.

not since their tectonic plates went apartheid and made them a separate continent

gg lollerskates

I see far greater things like this coming down the pipeline in YEARS coming just watch, This is a little zit and someday soon it will get bigger and bigger and POP PUSS EVERYWHERE!

Well this is fun...

No one can be held accountable for online comments. For one thing nobody can regulate across borders that which is on another nations soil and another it proves the moronic ignorance of people thinking they can dictate the laws of other nations.

If I can't say what's on my mind or have an opinion without penalty,then what's the
good of free speech?I understand certain things are taboo and usually stay out of
it,unless I see something wrongly stated.Oh well,this is the future and it's been
coming a long time and nothing I can do to alter it.

Even the EU E-Commerce Directive specifically allows that. It only excludes liability when the intermediary, in this case the website, has put in place a notice-and-takedown system and responds accordingly. There is a reasonable threshold and it's specifically taken into consideration by the Court. From the facts of the case I gather that the website has done nothing at all for six weeks, until the lawyers had to request the removal. They were even criticised and warned for this practice. Seems fair to me. If you don't care at all what is posted on your website even if it is brought to your attention, you might as well be responsible for it, given that you are the one keeping those comments on the web for everyone to see.

European laws simply don't recognise an absolute right to free speech. Some countries like the UK have pretty extensive defamation laws. It's been like that for a long time. In private relationships, you can be held accountable. It's different when the State would prosecute you for this, then the right to free speech is generally wider.

People usually don't understand this when they use it. The government isn't Big Brother - you are. Everyone is Big Brother as we turn on each other for the sake of laws and fear of being punished by them. So fearful that we become the enforcers and executioners.

Which is why I find it silly when people use it casually to mean "the government is always watching". It only becomes a Big Brother issue when the people accept it which is clearly not the case here. :P

This makes no sense at all. You do realise a website even as GOG has maybe a few 100,000 comments right? You cannot possibly go through all of them no matter how you look at the argument in order to avoid being punished.

Its like asking you to count every grain of sand on a beach. Its retarded.

"[N]otice-and-takedown system". The law does not require hosts to monitor everything. They just need to put in place a system to make sure that people can point them to potential infringements. The E-Commerce Directive, for instance, requires actual knowledge of the infringements. Once they know, they have to act. If they don't, they're responsible.

Approximately 5,000 billion billion OR 5 sextillion.

Sextillion on the beach. Yeah.

You cannot give notice to a web admin to shut them down if their site is not in your nation that has such laws to do so. If it were an american site and the UK lawyers give them a take down notice. The american will reply with

"BAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahhahaaaa....*cough gag cough, breathes* BAHAHAHAhahahahahahhaa...."

....and go about their business untouched till hell freezes over =D

Thank you Breja. XD I can always count on you. :P