Online Service Providers: Models for Limiting Their Liability

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Author: Coenraad Visser
• Citation: (2000) 12 SA Merc LJ 164
• Published date: 03 September 2019
• Pages: 164-174
• Date: 03 September 2019

Online Service Providers: Models

for Limiting Their Liability

COENRAAD VISSER

University of South Africa

1 Introduction: The Internet

The Internet, sometimes called the 'Information Super Highway' or the

'Global Information Infrastructure', simply consists of a co-operative

interconnection of computer networks. First created in 1969 by the

United States Department of Defence, it has grown into a global web of

computer networks which allows users throughout the world to exchange

resources. The best known category of communication over the Internet

is the World Wide Web. It allows users to search for and retrieve

information stored in remote computers, often in other parts of the

world, and, in some cases, to communicate back to designated sites.

The core infrastructure of the Internet consists mainly of routers

(computers designed to receive and transmit data), hosts (computers

which store programs and data), and pipes (telecommunication links

between the routers and hosts).

Typically, an Internet transaction involves

'a chain of intermediate service providers. Having acquired an account with a hosting

service provider, an information provider will upload web pages onto his web site which

is physically located on the host's "server" — which is best thought of as a very large

hard disk accessible from the network. Upon storage on the server the uploaded

documents become instantly available to everyone with a connection to the Internet.

Access to the Internet, in turn, is provided by an access provider. On the way from host

to access provider to end user the transported documents pass through the infrastructure

of a network provider, who, apart from providing the physical facilities to transport a

signal, will also transmit and route it to the designated recipient. It is not uncommon that

a single (legal) entity provides a complete range of these services' (Kamiel Koelman &

Bernt Hugenholtz 'Online Service Provider Liability for Copyright Infringement',

paper delivered at a Workshop on Service Provider Liability, presented by the

World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, 9-10 December 1999 (OSP/LIA/1)

at 1-2).

The main players in the Internet context, then, are infrastructure and

network providers, content providers, administrators, access providers

(commonly, and perhaps less accurately, known as Internet Service

Providers (ISPs), or, more accurately, as Online Service Providers

(OSPs)), navigation providers, and transaction facilitators.

Hosts are basically places where data are stored and which are

accessible through the Internet. The types of data include computer

software, and text and graphics files. The way in which the files are stored

may vary, as may the relationship of the owner of a host to the data

stored on it. The legal responsibility of the owner of a host will depend on

the exact nature of the role she has assumed.

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(2000) 12 SA Merc LJ 164

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