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Landmark Canadian Hyperlink Case Goes To Supreme Court
An anonymous reader writes "Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes is trying to reverse a decision by BC Supreme Court judge Stephen Kelleher that linking is not the same as publishing. He's been given permission to appeal it to the Supreme Court of Canada. If he wins, it could mean the end of the net in Canada and will reverberate around the world. 'The notion that someone might be considered a publisher merely by linking to someone else's content, I think could have a potentially huge chilling affect [sic] and, for that reason alone, is going to have a major impact on the shape of the Internet in Canada,' says Ottawa law professor Michael Geist. Hyperlinking is what the web is all about, says p2pnet founder Jon Newton. 'Without it, the Internet would become a drab and pale facsimile of the exciting news, data and information medium it is today. Instead, each item would be isolated from every other item, and online defamation lawsuits aimed at anyone and everyone with a Web site would instantly become commonplace.'"
What gets me is not that this is going to the supreme court (where I'm sure it'll be tossed out regardless) but that it when it was dismissed from the BC Court of Appeals, there was a dissenting judge...
Government _really_ needs to become better educated on technology and how the 'tubes' work. See - the same thing happens up here in Canada too!
Really, I think the whole sturm and drang of the doom of the internet is so much a red herring. This would hurt content aggregators, of course. They would ultimately have to pony up for links to interesting sites, rather than the benefit of a no-follow link. But, between google bombing, link farms and all the other useless link content on the internet, I would not mind a sweeping away of sites that really offer no value at all. Far from being this rich and beautiful thing, most of today's internet is just an over-advertised waste of time.
This is my sig.
This stupid case was tossed out in the first instance, and will certainly lose in the second...
Never underestimate the the ignorance of technology of governments and their courts.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So, Wayne wants the courts to agree hyperlinking an article is "publishing" and that anyone who links to defamatory content is guilty of defamation themselves. He's already lost twice in courts.
Speaking as a Canadian, I think the snowball has a better chance in our supreme courts. My prediction is that 8 or 9 of the supreme court justices will rule against him.
Believe it or not, I think our supreme court is pretty good. They're smart people and they make sane decisions.