UK Libel Law Is a Global Threat To Web Free Speech 363
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."
Isn't that why we have court... (Score:1, Interesting)
implications (Score:5, Interesting)
Sooooo, what does this mean to a citizen of another country (say the United States) who has no assets in GB? Are they able to reach out and touch you?
Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a British citizen. I have no assets in the UK anybody could seize.
Why should I care if you sue me in a UK court? You could get a court order entitling you to a million pound. How would you collect? Ask me to send you a cheque from the US?
Jurisdiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am pretty sure a UK libel judgement against foreign citizens and servers cannot be enforced. A UK judgement cannot be enforced against servers located in the United States. That would be an abrogation of the rights of the United States to be the sole police of its citizenry. Imagine a world where foreign judgements are enforceable: courts in Nigeria would be issuing summons to Bill Gates for millions of dollars!
Re:Why should I care about foreign court orders? (Score:5, Interesting)
Come and get me, bitches.
Missed the elephant in the living room (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic thing that's wrong with UK libel law is that the burden of proof is on the defendant. The defendant must prove that the published article isn't libelous, whereas in the US the prosecution must prove that the article is libelous. In the UK the defamatory article is assumed to be wrong unless the defendant proves it true, whereas in the US the article is assumed to be true unless the prosecution proves it false. And then the US prosecutor would have to prove that it was maliciously false, that the defendant knew it to be false. Welcome to Soviet Britain, where defendant is guilty until proven innocent!
UK law in libel was designed to protect the powerful against 'false' accusations in the press, where US law was designed to protect the press in publishing accusations. See John Peter Zenger [wikipedia.org]
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:1, Interesting)
So why should you be allowed to make false, clearly damaging claims and not be held responsible for them? A civil case is not a criminal trial - a civil case is normally where there is some sort of mess (a broken contract, a car wreck, etc) and the courts are responsible for allocating the costs of the mess among the parties. Somebody is always going to be stuck with the costs. On the other hand, a criminal trial can end with none of the parties being criminally responsible.
If you make specific claims about a priest molesting someone, and it turns out you are wrong, why should he not be able to sue you in the same way he could sue you if you drove into him in your car accidentally? Most car wrecks aren't deliberate, but that doesn't mean people get some sort of immunity for the damage they cause because they didn't mean to do it.
Defamation cases are tort cases, just like cases over car accidents. The issue is that somebody has been hurt by the actions of another and if it was not them that was wrong then they should not be stuck with the consequences.
There ARE in fact extra protections for journalists covering public interest cases (see Jameel vs Dow Jones for example), something else that many people overlook.
Certainly you have a right to free speech. But if your poorly-thought-through accusations cause damage to an innocent man I don't see why he shouldn't ask for compensation from you. If you don't have any proper evidence against the man really you should either wait until you have better evidence, or accept that if you are making a mistake you will have to pay for it.
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:3, Interesting)
I think we in the US did learn from Britain's mistakes. It's called the First Amendment and was written by some then-until-very-recently British subjects who were learning from mistakes made.
Re:Right to Free Speech != Right to Defame (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are an actual lawyer, then can you please explain why you don't do it like the US does, REQUIRE THE PROSECUTION TO PROVE GUILT, NOT REQUIRE THE DEFENDANT TO PROVE INNOCENCE?
Libel and slander require proving the accusation for exactly the same reason that other laws are innocent until proven guilty. If you slander someone, you are bringing an allegation against them. The lawsuit is basically saying 'put up or shut up'. The person bringing the suit is equivalent to the defendant in any other lawsuit; they are defending themselves against allegations that have been made and are innocent until proven guilty. I am not sure why you would want it to be the other way around.
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimately Brits are STILL Subjects and not citizens.
They are only allowed to speak in public at the pleasure of the crown (although the Crown tries to exercise restraint)... and that's still legal precedent for many things regarding "individual" rights. Brits have only the rights the Magna Carta and other documents SAY they have... the Crown reserves the right to keep all the others. Versus the US where States and individuals have all the rights unless the government has a good reason to take them away.
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:3, Interesting)
UK = Deny by default
US = Allow by default
I'm missing a geek security/political parallel there somewhere, though the UK has the correct stance from a security point of view. "Bad for citizens, good for networks"?
Meh, needs dome refining.
I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Before "the web", these sorts of problems did not exist. You would have to publish the item as a book or paper and have it physically distributed via the local system, and thereby be subject to local controls. I suppose in some cases, you could pick up a broadcast via satellite, but by and large a country's physical borders provided information borders. Now with the web, you can email, visit web sites etc around the world fairly unobstructed. Even in china, I think you can get past their firewall in some ways. The question is, will countries, even western countries, snip the wires to try to put the genie back in the bottle? I think you could even find solutions to still allowing email. Why not just "delay" all inter-country connections by 30 minutes. This would make browsing impossibly slow, but email would still work fine. I don't think this is going to happen, but I wonder if the original creators of "the web" had any idea that their information sharing would ruffle so many feathers.
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:God save the Queen!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Note, the European Convention applied in the UK since 1950 - but to take advantage of it, you had to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights directly. With the Human Rights Act, UK courts have to take into account ECHR judgements, and it makes it illegal for any UK public body to act contrary to the Convention, which can then be judged in the UK courts. There's still the option of taking a case to the ECHR though, if UK courts don't give satisfaction, and the ECHR is a higher jurisdiction than any UK court, so its judgements must be followed, or you're in breach of european and UK law.