A Comparative Study of Civil Liability for Defective Information of Written Works in Law of Iran and Common Law

Nowadays, theories, new ideas and generally speaking information have a very important role in cultural, economic and political life of human beings. Most of the books and magazines consist of significant and broad information that they may be defective. In fact, they are goods that due to defective of ambiguous information, may be considered as defective and cause damage to their readers or users. In common law system, claims against authors and publishers for the defect of information of written works are examined on the basis of liability for the defect of goods. In our legal system, despite the existing ambiguities specifically in Consumers Protection Rights Act, applying the standards of the liability for defect of goods and acceptance of strict liability arising from the defects of written works can be an appropriate solution in solving the problems and disputes that have been occurred due to injuries caused to readers and other consumers of these works resulting from their defect. In Imamiyah jurisprudence, provoking some jurisprudential rules including ‘To whom there is benefit, there is damage to”, the liability can be imposed on authors and publishers without proving the negligence.  The method of the present study is descriptive-analytic and the method of collecting materials is a library-based one.