UK Libel Law Is a Global Threat To Web Free Speech

uctpjac writes "London media lawyer Emily MacManus argues that UK libel law has three features which make it the 'defamation tourism' capital of the world and a serious threat to Web free speech. First, there is no free speech presumption in the UK as there is, for example, in the US. Second, every access of a Web page is considered to be a separate act of publication in the UK (unlike the US, where 'original publication' holds). Third, 'no-win-no-fee' libel litigation is now allowed in the UK. If any blog, anywhere, publishes something you'd like taken down, threaten libel action in the UK: no one except the super-rich can afford to even take these cases to court, so media lawyers advise publishers to 'take it down, take it down quickly, take it down again.' There's not much chance that the judges will move the law any time soon because they just aren't seeing the cases that could cause them to set new precedent."

Comments

Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame

[BSAtHome]

But the 'no-win-no-fee' will make it a no-cost low-effort to suppress unwanted speech. There is a big difference between libel and things you do not want to hear.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[darkmeridian]

Extradition is governed by treaties and only applies to criminal cases. Most extradition treaties require the demanding country to prove a prima facie case of a crime. If the UK suddenly made libel a crime so it could extradite violators, most countries would change their extradition treaties accordingly.

The article is just being sensationalist. It sucks if you are in the UK, or have your servers there, or if you have property within the UK, but the rest of the world is not affected by the UK civil law. The end effect will be that servers will not be hosted in the UK and media companies will avoid it as well.

Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame

[jjohnson]

Actually, in the UK, truth is a strict defense against libel. Holocaust Denier David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt over the UK edition of her book, Denying the Holocaust, in which she called Irving

a Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot, and said that he manipulated and distorted real documents.

Irving lost after a trial in which his scholarship on the Holocaust was shown to be fraudulent and he was demonstrated to be a bigot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit

In the U.S., truth is not a strict defense against libel:

For example, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February 2009 in the case of Noonan v. Staples, that even a true statement, if made with malicious intent, could stand as the basis of a defamation suit, based on a clause in Massachusetts libel law, allowing libel suits for true claims made in "actual malice."

Your belief above that honestly believing something is sufficient, is not strictly true: It depends upon the jurisdiction you're in.

Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders?

[g.a.dyke]

(repeat from below)

Within the EU, this is relatively straightforward. The Brussels Regime provides a framework for one member state to enforce the judgement of the Courts in another member state.

Within the US, there is also (in most cases) a mechanism for the enforcement of a foreign (i.e. UK) monetary judgements, but this isn't automatic by any means and is dependent on state law.

It should be noted that, in both cases, such judgements won't be honoured if the appeal process is still ongoing.

The Brussels Convention - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41968A0927(01):EN:HTML

Uniform Foreign Money Judgments Recognition Act 1962 - http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/fnact99/1920_69/ufmjra62.pdf

Re:lol

[Truekaiser]

Mothers against drunk driving is the party that is responsible for that. Before they got the law changed you could drink at 18.

Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders?

[webmaestro]

UK judgments, and really those from any country, can be enforced against US citizens, even those that have never been to that country and have no assets anywhere other than in the US. Now a US court will require that the party trying to enforce the foreign judgment demonstrate that you had sufficient contacts with the foreign state to warrant personal jurisdiction, but directing speech to people in that country may be enough to enable the other party to enforce that judgment in the US. Its not just "oh, I don't live in the UK and have never been there, so I can't be sued there." Nothing is further from the truth. That is why is is a global threat to free speech.

Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame

[Orion Blastar]

It is not that you made false and/or misleading claims, the way the law is written you can face libel even if your claims are true as a way for the person, organization, or company you are making the claims against files a case against you in the UK and you cannot afford to defend yourself or you cannot prove the claims are true because the person who told you them refuses to fly to the UK to defend you because it costs too much to do so.

It is not innocent until proven guilty, you are considered guilty and have to prove yourself innocent. It can be abused to take away free speech by claiming said speech on the Internet is libel in the UK.

Everywhere else in the world it can be considered the truth, but in the UK it is libel unless you can prove it is true.