Summary

The issue of liability of administrators of web logs, message boards and internet forums has of late been widely discussed. This article focuses on the conflict between general personality rights and the right of expression, more specifically citing the example of web logs and internet forums. Violation of personality rights gives rise to nonpatrimonial damage. The author examines the object of the protected rights in the case of nonpatrimonial damage, the possibilities for protection of personality rights as well as the entitled subjects of this right.

The article seeks to determine what can be considered as unlawful expression and how a person’s personality rights may be violated through art as expression in a special generalised form, who is liable for the content of a web log or forum, what should be taken into account in determining the extent of the violation, how to overcome the conflict between general fundamental rights and freedom of express in private law relationships (the so-called Drittwirkung of freedom of expression) and, where this is not possible, what restrictions of the freedom of expression are considered proportional.

The issue of protection of general personality rights is new to Estonian court practice. In this area, the practice of the higher courts of Germany merits attention, as the German legal system is similar to the Estonian legal system. The article therefore centres on examples from German court practice.