명예훼손과 온라인서비스제공자의 형사책임

The Criminal Responsibility of On-line Service Provider(OSP) about Defamation

Considering great social influence of Internet and other information and communication networks these days, On-line Service Provider(OSP) should be responsible for illegal activities regarding its information and communication service when it does not take proper actions against the illegal activities despite acknowledgement. This paper examined OSP's civil liability and criminal liability from point of view of the Criminal Act. As a result, OSP's criminal liability shall be limited to ‘aiding and abetting by omission’ only when OSP's access and control against illegal contents are objectively admitted. Despite aforementioned legal theory, OSP's criminal responsibility of others' defamation on information and communication networks shall be prudently admitted. This is because OSP's admission of criminal responsibility can reinforce regulations on OSP's information and communication services to give chilling effects and to be likely to weakenfreedom of expression that is basic rights of the Constitution. Therefore, the obligation of caution can cognize infringement upon others' legal interests caused by posts of evident illegality, and it should be limitedly admitted within specific scope that can be controlled. Defamation not only being illegal activities of the Civil Law but also being crimes of the Criminal Law have a lot of common factors, and conditions of criminal responsibility are stricter than the ones of civil responsibility are: Considering such a fact, when OSP's criminal responsibility based on others' defamation on Internet is decided, conditions of civil responsibility that have been recently suggested by civil judgment (2008DA53812) shall be minimum conditions that can admit of criminal responsibility.