On 2005-05-01, Tanker wrote:
You may want to read some of those laws you talk about.....The last time I
read an internet law it indicated that no man or woman or business can sue
for libel for information published on the internet. The execption to this
rule is the Child Pornography laws which cover all entities and media types.

Interestingly, this may not be the case.

Let's leave aside the concept that the internet as a whole is legally
construed as a forum on which libel cannot take place - ie, that it is
somehow not considered a form of publishing. I have grave doubts about
whether this is the case, although it is true that what's been published
here is unlikely to cause a court to give a damn.

I'd be quite interested to read said law, if you happen to have a
citation. Are you perhaps thinking of the cases that says an ISP is not
considered to be the publisher of any libellous material?

The problem is fundamentally that the internet - in this case, Usenet -
is *international*. American A can sue American B for libel in pretty
much whatever jurisdiction he wants, since the libel will have permeated
there and *still be libellous*. So an American law, if you're suitably
determined, only means you have to go and file papers elsewhere.

http://www.legalday.co.uk/lexnex/cmck/cmck310103.htm &
http://www.legalday.co.uk/lexnex/sim...kins201202.htm mention a
2002 ruling where an Australian was given leave to sue an American
agency, in an Australian court, for material uploaded in America - it
was available (ie, "published") in Australia, albeit in trivial numbers,
and the defendant had grounds for suing under Australian libel law.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...0894DD4044 82
mentions a case involving the Washington Post being sued in a Toronto
court, by someone who was (at the time) a Guinean citizen resident in
Austria... You get the idea.

Whilst this thread is unlikely to be the sort of thing that would make
it worthwhile bringing suit, it is wise to be aware to - the UK, and
Commonwealth countries generally, have much more favourable laws for
anyone considering themselves defamed than the US does. And this sort of
forum shopping is already reasonably well-established amongst
high-profile cases in the print media...

--
-Andrew Gray