Media Organizations Join Forces to Fight Canadian Ruling

csaila writes "Some of the world's big media outlets (including CBC, CNN, Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Reuters, and -- as well as Amazon, AOL, Google and Yahoo) are appealing a Canadian court ruling threatening both free speech and the Net. The ruling stems from a former UN employee who successfully sued the Washington Post in Ontario for libel, arguing that because the Post's Web site carried the story. his reputation had been "damaged" in that province."

Comments

Not sure I get this one.

[bigtallmofo]

The newspaper moved to have the case dismissed and argued that if it were allowed to proceed in Ontario, any news organization could be sued anywhere over material posted on its website.

Their defense doesn't appear to be "What we posted that got him fired was truthful", but rather that if you allow the lawsuit to proceed that you could hold anyone responsible for what they post on the Internet anywhere in the world.

On the one hand, how do you protect true speech if someone who posts it can be sued everywhere in the world, but on the other hand how do you protect everyone in the world from people posting false speech?

Re:Not sure I get this one.

[hyphz]

> Their defense doesn't appear to be "What we
> posted that got him fired was truthful", but
> rather that if you allow the lawsuit to
> proceed that you could hold anyone responsible
> for what they post on the Internet anywhere in
> the world.

And I think it's probably overblown and paranoid.

Yea, it means that if a US citizen libels someone in the UK, say, then the UK citizen can sue them *in the UK* because they've suffered damage there. Except it doesn't mean that at all since, after all, what can the UK court do? Put him in prison? He's not in the UK. Make him pay a fine? His money's not in the UK. They'd have to get these things from the US, and the US would refuse.

Now, if it was a UK citizen who libelled a US citizen, this decision would mean they might wind up standing trial under US libel law. Except it doesn't mean that at all, because this has always been the case, not because of this court decision but because of the US's volume of muscle. Just ask that nice Mr Skylarov.

Re:Not sure I get this one.

[Zocalo]

Nor me, and based on the content of the linked articles I'd have to side with Cheickh Bangoura on this one. This case isn't about free speech at all, it's about taking responsibility for what you have said or written while using your right to free speech, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. The papers printed something that was found to be untrue by a UN investigation and would undeniably damage someone's reputation whether it was true or not. If the media companies concerned can't prove that they are in the right and the UN's investigation drew the wrong conclusion then they should be liable for damages.

Still, if the ruling is overturned, Cheickh Bangoura is of course free to make any unfounded allegations about the companies concerned and any of their employees that he sees fit. After all, he'd only be exercising his right to free speech, right?

Man...

[DoubleDangerClub]

I think this is ridiculous. I just can't see how they can try and use internet access as an excuse to make more money out of a court case.

If this were the case, Paris Hilton could sue for every province that her video was accessible from the internet. In fact, all celebrities could sue someone on these same grounds.br>

A different take

[mchawi]

One of the things that I wonder about, not being a lawyer, is how this would actually impact the individual. Let us say that you live in Europe and the Washington Post issued a story on their website (viewed in Europe) that was incorrect, and you wanted to sue for libel. Should you then have to file in the United States - and have to pay charges to go there, legal fees in the US, etc?

I'm not saying one is better than another, because I can see some benefits to the 'consumer' in both instances. I'm just curious what the law is now, for a newspaper. If the newspaper was sent to Europe and someone sued for libel - do they have to file in the US?

I guess my concern would be that internet companies based in countries with different laws or other sort of barriers to suing for libel would make it so that they could print anything - or is that already the case?

I'm just not sure how companies standing up to defend themselves against being sued in a foreign country for publishing rumors and innuendo is a 'free speech' issue. It sounds like they just want to make anyone suing them have to do so in the country where they are hosted.

Re:Media Lies Protection Appeal

[gordo3000]

The post didn't malliciously lie about this guy. They didn't decide to go after this man by destroyin his reputation(like the McCarthy trials). There was, at the time, some proof that he was involved in illegal activities and the post reported on it. By your exact logic, President Bush could sue almost every media outlet in the world(especially those that post online) because of those false documents about his military record or OJ simpson suing every news outlet that called him a murderer.

People shouldn't have their hands tied from reporting based on the facts available. Its why we call them reporters and not detectives. I hope this gets struck down simply because if we want to have a society where we are kept up to date we have to allow for these people to report based on bad information once in a while. As long as it wasn't meant to crush the man's reputation out of spite, its fair game(ie. they had a good reason to believe at the time of reporting that this is true).

Now I will say it would be the responsibility of the Post to probably directly link to that article another article about how he was found not guilty of the crime. But I won't say they need to actually be 100% certain every time they report something that every fact is accurate.

What if

[wiredog]

They publish an uncomfortable truth, and it's read online in a country where that particular truth is illegal to express?

Re:Media Lies Protection Appeal

[Kombat]

People shouldn't have their hands tied from reporting based on the facts available.

(Ob. Simpson quote): "Facts, schmacks! Facts can be used to prove anything even remotely true."

I hope you see the absurdity in your statement. Of course "reports" should be held accountable for what they report. Yes, by all means, they should only report the facts, or clearly note when they are editorializing. Haven't you ever noticed that news outlets are incredibly diligent about always referring to someone as the "alleged driver of the car," or "the individual suspected of ordering the shooting?"

And for the record, OJ actually does threaten legal action when media outlets publish/broadcast stories referring to him as a "murderer." That's why none of them do it. They always say he was "accused" of murdering his wife, or found "civilly responsible" in civil court. But they never call him a "murderer" outright. They know he could/would sue them.

This isn't a question about it being a lie.

[Shivetya]

This is a question about the limits of local laws have over content available from sources outside of their domain.

Yes the post maligned this guy. They may have even lied about it. It does look like they reported what they had without researching it completely. This type of stuff happens all the time.

The key issue here is that this guy is sueing in Ontario, where he did not live at the time the article was created. Worse he is sueing because the article is still available through archives.

Bad reporting should be identified but it should never be removed from the public's access. The slippery slope is that if you start to curtail the availability to erroneous documents because they damage someone how long before truthful stuff gets edited or restricted in distribution?

The only way to prevent offense to people in this persons situation would be to expunge the story from all sources accessible from the net. That is not a solution that I even believe is possible.

This is not a bad ruling...

[spiritraveller]

This ruling does not say that you can be sued in Canada for posting something on your website in New York. It says that the Washington Post can be sued in Canada... because they do business there!

If your company does business in a country, it should be suable in that country. Freedom of the Press should provide protection under the substantive law of a country... but it just goes way too far to give complete protection from any jurisdiction.

Basically, the Washington Post wants a sort of diplomatic immunity for the press... which is absurd.

The issue is already settled law in the U.S.

[rfc1394]

While I am not a lawyer, I am aware of the issue of multi-jurisdictional libel suits where the defendant is sued in a court to which they have no presence, and the issue has already been decided.

In Griffis v. Luban, 646 N.W.2d 527 (July 11, 2002), the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Katherine Griffis could not enforce a default judgement from Alabama on a libel suit filed against Mariane Luban, a resident of Minnesota, for Luban's allegedly libelous comments about Griffis on Usenet News, because Ms. Luban has no presence in, and does not do business, in Alabama and the mere publication on the Internet did not give the courts in Alabama jurisdiction over her. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on appeal, so the case represents the law as it stands now in the U.S. From the syllabus (summary) of the case:

A nonresident defendant is not subject to a foreign court's jurisdiction under the effects test from Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783, 79 L. Ed. 2d 804, 104 S. Ct. 1482 (1984), absent a showing that: (1) the defendant committed an intentional tort; (2) the plaintiff felt the brunt of the harm caused by that tort in the forum such that the forum state was the focal point of the plaintiff's injury; and (3) the defendant expressly aimed the tortious conduct at the forum such that the forum state was the focal point of the tortious activity.

This is further bolstered by other cases, of which someone posted a list, include Barrett v. Catacombs Press, 44 F. Supp.2d 717 (E.D. Pa.1999); English Sports Betting, Inc. v. Tostigan, 2002 WL 461592 (E. D. Pa. March 15, 2002); Young v. New Haven Advocate, 315 F. 3d 256(4th Cir. 2002); Pavlovich v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, 58 P. 3d 2 (Cal. 2002).

This goes along with the general rule that a person should only be expect to be subject to suit where they maintain some presence. To provide otherwise would be manifest insanity as you couldn't defend yourself from thousands of lawsuits filed in courts all over the country where you have no involvement and no reason to expect to be sued. Now this would, of course, be a big problem if you're in an accident in your home town and the guy who hit you lives 1,000 miles away; you might not be able to afford to sue them for damages if it's minor. But they solved that one. When you operate an automobile, and you are involved in an accident, under the Drivers' License Compact, you agree to allow the administrator of the Department of Motor Vehicles or equivalent agency of the state where the accident occurred to accept service on your behalf if you are not a resident of that state. Thus if you are involved in an accident, you may be sued in the state where you reside or in the state where the accident occurred, but you can't be sued in the state where the plaintiff lives or anyplace else because there is no jurisdiction.

The Washington Post does not do business in the Province of Ontario, has no contacts with it, and its article wasn't targeting Ontario specifically, thus under U.S. Law there is no grounds for them to be sued in Ontario for what they wrote in a newspaper and a website which are published in the District of Columbia. Even if the plaintiff wins, they can't get a judgement enforced here because of lack of jurisdiction, so it's a pyrrihic victory if they can even prove it to be libelous.