Study On Civil Liability Of News Infringement On Reputation Rights

News-infringement on reputation rights, means the media including newspapers, books, radio, television, internet, mobile phone and so on that can influence the people widely, and as well as its author, information provider and other relevant media's behavior that infringe the citizens or legal persons'reputation rights. For a long time, due to the ambiguous recognition of the relationship between press freedom and reputation protection in China, it is difficult to try such cases in judicial practice. We can see the comparative analysis and value analysis in this article. The author explains some detailed problems about news infringement on reputation rights with theories and legislation experience of other countries, such as forms, the components, prescribed plea instance, the liability subject, the methods of bearing liability and the legislative situation in China, and put forward some consummate suggestions, in order to contribute to the legislation of news infringement in China.This article is composed of four parts.The first part introduces the basic theoretical issues of civil liability of news infringement on reputation rights. It introduces the concept of reputation, reputation rights and news infringement on reputation right, introduces the forms of news infringement on reputation right, and analyzes four constitutive requirements of news infringement on reputation:unlawful behavior of news infringement on reputation right; facts of damage of specific person; causality between press tort behavior and facts of damages; subject mistakes of tort behavior.The second part analyzes the liable body and manners of undertaking in news infringement. The body includes not only the traditional but also the fresh like BBS, blog, etc. In this part, there are also the influences of the new "Tort Liability Law" on the traditional liable body.The third part mainly analyzes the plea instance of news infringement on reputation rights. With relative legislation and cases of other countries, the author expounds five plea instance: truthful reports, fair comment, patent right to news report, public figure and agreement of the sufferer.In the last part, the author introduces the legislative situation in China, and put forward some consummate suggestions:(1) Introduce the principle of "actual malice", which would require a clear concept of "public people" in legislative and a strict means of "actual malice"; (2)Rule of punitive compensation. It is necessary to enact the rule of punitive compensation to protect the interest of sufferer.