Legal expert over here?
See
here. Essentially, it's been shown that linking to illegal material amounts to copyright infringement on behalf of the forum/site itself. That's why we don't allow links to torrents/P2P programs/etc here, because it's too hard to judge if it's a copyright infringement or not. If it is, bos can get in real trouble.
If it has been shown that the site is (within a reasonable period of time) responsible for forum members' linking, I don't see why it's not also responsible for forum members' other conduct. It's exactly the same situation as a newspaper, radio program, or whatever -- the editorial team will always try to remove illegal material, because they can be held accountable, despite them not writing it.
With regards to whether it'll be good publicity, well I think it will in the end. They will do what many products and services have done in the past, which is use the bad publicity to propel their bad brand, then at the last minute change the product as to iron out all the problems. They'll undoubtedly use the negative news-space to promote their new product; ie when a newspaper does an article about the suit and asks for feedback from the company, they'll essentially say 'these charges are slanderous and illegal! We've changed our product, though, it's orsum now.'
