A Libel Suit May Establish E-Jurisdiction

BrianWCarver writes: "The NY Times (free registration blah blah...) is reporting that a libel suit may establish a precedent of allowing online publishers to be sued not in the jurisdiction where their servers reside, but in the jurisdiction of the complaintant. A warden at a Virginia jail didn't like the way he was portrayed by several Connecticut-based online news outlets so he sued in his home state of Virginia. "If the district court decision stands, online publishers could be sued for defamation in any state or country that an online article is read." The article goes on to worry that this will cause publishers to self-censor their online publishing to avoid offending anyone in any jurisdiction, whatsoever, which if carried to its logical conclusion, means online publishing would simply cease." This may remind you of an earlier case in which an Australian businessman sued Dow Jones for libel. Update: 05/27 15:12 GMT by J : Jamie Love points out elsewhere that 60 countries, including the USA, are negotiating a treaty regarding Internet jurisdiction for libel and defamation.

Comments

Global censorship

[triptolemeus]

Wow, if this goes. We all have to live with the most opressive laws this world has seen. Just imagine our freedom of speech reduced to, for instance, what Iraque wants us to read.

Just have a look at what happend to Salman Rushdie.

Trip

*sigh*

[dalassa]

Now comes the point: Defamation suits of any kind are nigh impossible to win. I don't see from what was presented in the article how the plantiff can win. The article was in fact reporting actual quotes. Truth is never libel, nor are opionions. Libel must have a specific intent to be injurious and must be a knowing falshood. How on earth this case doesn't fall under one of those I can't see.
If this case is won or even if the jurisdiction is accepted and upheld it does present a grave danger to free expression on the web. Not all countries have the same standard for libel/slander.

As for other countries sueing America. Remember this is America. We never listen to international law when it doesn't suit us, but that is another discussion.

Internet Jurisdiction section on FindLaw

[Seth Finkelstein]

This is an oft-discussed topic. Consider FindLaw - Internet Juridiction

Internet Jurisdiction

The Internet is an interstate and international medium. But does operating a Web Site mean that the operator is subject to personal jurisdiction in courts wherever the Site is accessible? The answer obviously is no. This outline describes the types of activity that likely will permit a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over an Internet actor, consistent with the due process clause of the United States Constitution.

For example: http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/netjuris/netjuris_1.ht ml (emphasis added)

Courts generally have declined to assert personal jurisdiction solely on the basis of Web Site advertising. However, courts have exercised jurisdiction over Web Site operation where additional and more active contacts with the forum took place, such as Internet sales to the forum residents, conducting business in the forum state through numerous contacts, or entering into specific dealings with forum residents

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Hague Convention

[jplove]

I was pretty surprised that Carl Kaplan did not mention the fact that 60 countries are negotiating a treaty that may set international jurisdiction rules for libel and defamation cases. The NYT continues to ignore this treaty, and here the omission is really pretty stark.

http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.ht m

Re:will they come to pick me up?

[analog_line]

China already has a national firewall. See also Saudi Arabia, and probably many other nations. Where have you been?

I believe it's only a matter of time until all countries firewall their Intenet access. The US will likely be forced to if the various copy-control bills are passed, because it will be illegal for anyone to download almost anything that doesn't have copy control support built in. They'll also likely be built to keep hostile nations out. It won't be the Iron Curtain. It's be the Iron Firewall. News flash people. The Internet is as much of a place as anyplace else. It can and will be controlled by whomever has the political clout to do so. All this free-love wishful thinking of the past few years is finally starting to be brought down, and the Internet shown for what it really is, just another piece of land to be grabbed, squatted, exploited, fought over, died for, invaded, and buried in. It's landfill. An internal virtual moon built by many people the world over, who didn't change into anything else just because they logged on the Internet.

Re:huh?

[pmc]

Unfortuantely you're wrong.

And so are you. This is the case of Lawrence Godfrey vs Demon Internet. The case was that somebody had posted a message that was forged to look like it came from Dr Godfrey, and was defamatory of him. This much all the parties agreed on.

Dr Godfrey faxed several ISPs and news providers in the UK and asked them to remove the posting form their newsspools (a mostly futile act it has to be said). Most complied but Demon, presumably thinking he was a usenet kook, didn't. Dr Godfrey followed up with several more faxes requesting action, but Demon refused to comply. So he sued demon for libel, as they were publishing the message in question. After much legal bickering (including the novel argument of "he was asking for it") Demon lost. A good account can be found at cyberrights.

Dr Godfrey is a University lecturer BTW.