from the yikes dept
In the past, we've noted that laws covering defamation have a much lower barrier in the UK, leading to what appear to be many more questionable defamation lawsuits there. It's now getting even more ridiculous. A court in the UK, basing its ruling on a precedent from 1830, says that every visit to a web page counts as a separate publication instance in a defamation lawsuit. Thus, every view of the content increases the potential liability. As many are noting, this creates a massive chilling effect to publishing anything online in the UK.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: I'm beginning to question whether defamation laws even make sense online these days. The original purpose behind libel laws was to prevent the situation where the few folks who controlled the presses could lie and smear the reputation of someone who had no legitimate way to fight back. Given that everyone has a printing press and worldwide distribution system in their computers these days, everyone does have a way to respond to such false claims. I'm not saying that we should get rid of defamation laws or that there aren't some obviously questionable cases -- but it does seem like many defamation lawsuits these days are little more than "I don't like what that guy said about me!" As more and more people recognize that online content really does tend to be more conversational and opinionated than, say, something in a traditional newspaper, the worries about reputation being damaged come to seem a bit overblown.
9 Comments | Leave a Comment..
RSS
Twitter
