Cubby v. CompuServe treats an online service as a distributor
Event Reviewed Automatically reviewed for factual accuracy, tone, and neutrality. Review does not check claims against cited sources. Last reviewed 22 October 2026.A federal district court in New York grants CompuServe summary judgment in a libel suit over a newsletter carried on its Journalism Forum, holding that as a distributor that did not review the content it could be liable only if it knew or had reason to know of the allegedly defamatory statements.
Court treats a non-reviewing online service as a distributor, not a publisher, of third-party content.
The suit was brought by Cubby, Inc. and Robert Blanchard, developers of a competing newsletter called Skuttlebut, over statements published in Rumorville USA, a daily newsletter about broadcast journalism that a third party uploaded to CompuServe’s Journalism Forum. The court reasoned that CompuServe exercised no more editorial control over the newsletter than a library, bookstore or newsstand would. Four years later, a New York state court reached the opposite result for Prodigy, which screened its boards, in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy; Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996, addressed the gap between the two rulings.
Sources
- 01.
Digital Media Law Project, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Cubby v. CompuServe. Legal-threats database entry. Source for the ruling date (29 October 1991), the court (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York), the parties, the Rumorville newsletter on CompuServe's Journalism Forum, the dismissal of all claims against CompuServe, and the court's comparison of CompuServe to 'a public library, book store, or newsstand.'
- 02.
vLex. Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., 776 F. Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). (1991). Text of the opinion (Judge Peter K. Leisure). Supports that CompuServe had no opportunity to review Rumorville's contents before they were uploaded, that it 'neither knew nor had reason to know' of the statements, and that its summary-judgment motion was 'granted in its entirety' on the libel, business disparagement and unfair competition claims.
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