An ISP does not Liable for the libel defamation because naturally or generally they do their duty only what the materials/information have been Provided to their service and they doesn’t observing or monitoring all the information that they sending to their user or subscriber. They does doing their job as a courier of the information that have been provided by other party or its subscriber without doing any observation or doing editing to any information that provided to them.
In the case of Smith v California, an ISP is presumed similar like a book shop owners which is not liable for the liability on defamation on libel. The reason is the owner’s of book shop does not know all the contains of information in all of the books in their shop. The owner of a book shop is not a publisher that have the obligation to observe or control all the contains in the all books that they are sell. Similar to an ISP, an ISP is only as a courier or seller of the information provided to them by their subscriber or others internet user. It is a difficulty to the ISP to control or observe all the contain of the information that provided by third party like its subscriber. In the case of Cubby Inc v CompuServe Inc, the court held that CompuServe as an ISP, does not liable for the defamation of libel that have been provided by its subscriber. The court held that CompuServe is similar like a owner of book shop, newspaper seller or a librarian in public library. They does not rationally expect as have all the eyes, observation and energy to control all the contains of all the information that being provided to them.
