Publishing Responsibilities and Liabilities

When you become an Information Provider on our system, you are, by legal definition, a "publisher." While Central Virginia's Community Online provides you with the facilities for publishing your information, as a "distributor" we are not legally responsible for any problems that may occur due to the content of your information.

Although you are publishing in a new medium, you face the same legal issues as traditional print publishers. Therefore it is important for you to understand where the "red flags" are in publishing, especially on the Internet.

Please note that this document was NOT prepared by an attorney and should NOT be considered legal advice.

Copyright

There is a great deal of confusion as to how current copyright laws apply to the Internet. While some information is available, there are still more questions than answers. If you are doing all original work on your pages, you have no problem. If you link to other people's materials from your pages, there usually is no problem. If you incorporate other people's work into your pages, you must have their permission to do so. Be aware that everything you find on the Internet is copyright - text, graphics, audio, etc. - unless there is an explicit statement otherwise. Copyright marks or statements are not required for something to be covered under copyright law.

Libel

Libel is written material which defames a person. Because of the potential exposure of materials published on the Internet courts will usually take such cases very seriously and determine sentences in accordance.

False Advertising

Make sure what you say about your organization is correct and timely. Again the amount of exposure your materials receive can exacerbate the situation. Remember there are a lot of people who "surf" the Internet who have little sense of humor and who hire attorneys when they feel offended or defrauded.

Pornography

While it is legal to possess and publish "Adult Materials" (pornography), it is illegal to distribute such material to minors. Since you have no control over who views your pages you would, in essence, be distributing such materials to minors and be subject to prosecution. Of course publication of obscene materials is a violation of both State and Federal law.

Other Responsibilities

The information above covered the legal liabilities all publishers have. There are also mutual responsibilities between you and Central Virginia's Community Online. Following are some of these areas.

Security of your Information Provider Account
We provide you with a computer account to maintain your information. We exercise the highest level of security possible to ensure that only that account can add or modify information in your production area (with the exception of the System Administrator). It is your responsibility to make sure that the password to your account is appropriately guarded. It is highly recommended that you change your password periodically.

Safety of your Information
We make an effort to ensure that backup copies of all files you have on the system are maintained in our archives. However we can not be held responsible for loss of information due to equipment or communications failure or due to late notification of such loss. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your pages at your location.

Availability of Information
Central Virginia's Community Online is providing you, at no charge, space on a Web server for publishing your organization's Web pages. We will do our best to make the system available for both accessing and maintaining the pages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, we can not guarantee that hardware, software or network problems will not occur and cause the system to be unavailable for periods of time.
While all this sounds serious (talking about responsibilities and legal issues) and it needs to be discussed, we hope your experience in using our system will be enjoyable and fruitful in promoting your organization. We will try our best to make it as pleasant as possible to publish on the Web.
Central Virginia's Community Online
This page is maintained by the Webmaster
Date last modified: Nov 5, 1998