Zeran V. Compuserve Case

The court ruled in CompuServe’s favor with the understanding that CompuServe served as no more than an electronic library and therefore is considered a distributor, which is protected under the First Amendment from libel. “Because CompuServe, as a news distributor, may not be held liable if it neither knew nor had reason to know of the allegedly defamatory Rumorville statements, summary judgment in favor of CompuServe on the libel claim is granted” (Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., 1991).
The CompuServe case was major in establishing whether online computer service providers can be held liable for defamatory statements made by third party contributors on their sites. Especially in the case Zeran v. America Online, Inc. Kenneth Zeran sued AOL