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The Courts Government News

Canadian Court Reverses Net Publication Ruling 64

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bad-precedent-dismissal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Canadian appellate court has reversed an earlier ruling that had media companies worldwide fearing an Internet publication chill. A lower court had asserted jurisdiction over the Washington Post based solely on an article published years earlier that was available on the Post's website. That decision attracted the attention of companies such as Reuters and Yahoo!, who appealed what was viewed as a dangerous Internet jurisdiction case."
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Canadian Court Reverses Net Publication Ruling More

Canadian Court Reverses Net Publication Ruling

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  • Just ignore them lower courts!

    But a valuable decision/correction non the less.

  • On the same topic, what's the best country for hosting stuff that pisses off Western companies?

    E.g. suppose I have a news site that deeplinks to the NYTimes. I suspect if I host in the USA or Canada, they can get at me and perhaps shut me down with summary judgement.

    But what's a country where that would be cool, and they'd tell the USA and Canada to go jump in a lake?

    I know France is bad -- Google got in trouble for their searches (e.g. Company Z, a competitor of "Company A" could buy the search term "Comp
    • *joke*

      Seriously, if you don't hold US citizenship and don't mind being banned from the good ol' USA, try anti-American countries like Cuba and countries that couldn't give a rats ass what Washington thinks, like China or sometimes France. Obviously not France for certain trademark-violating or pro-Nazi sites of course. On the other hand I hear Germany and a few other European countries are great places to post anti-Church-of-Scientology stuff that's (c) by them in the USA.

      Actually, what you want is a coun
      • CoS stuff is good in Germany because Germany banned the CoS as a "dangerous cult", so they don't get any legal protections there. But in general Germany's laws aren't that friendly, and there is basically no fair-use provision.

        Barring any country with a specific advantage for your specific content, I'd say the U.S. is probably the best, despite its numerous drawbacks. The First Amendment provides a very strong presumption in favor of people publishing content. This means you don't have to worry about all
    • The Netherlands. The Scandinavian Countries. HavenCo.

    • Sweeden or Sealand (Score:4, Informative)

      by _KiTA_ ( 241027 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @06:12PM (#13587079) Homepage
      IIRC, ThePirateBay, probably the biggest Bittorrent "dark grey" tracker network, is hosted in Sweeden, and, well, they openly mock US companies that send them threatening letters.

      http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php [thepiratebay.org]

      Also, IIRC, Sealand, which is a floating fortress that was abandoned in international waters, apparently has a hosting company. They make it a point to host things that might be illegal in other countries (the exception being child pornogrpahy and spam).

      http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/sealand.cfm [thewhir.com]
      http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa081100 a.htm [about.com]
      • I believe that Sealand is an artificial island, not a vessel. Also, I would suggest linking directly to their site, though I'd warn readers that it is a bit subjective [sealandgov.com].

      • Sealand [wikipedia.org] is not a "floating fortress", it was an anti-aircraft platform during WW2. I'm not sure if it is floating [wikipedia.org] and it certainly isn't a fortress.
        • From answers.com:

          In 1942 during World War II, HMS Fort Rough was constructed in England as one of the Maunsell Sea Forts. It comprised a floating barge with a superstructure of two towers joined by a deck upon which other structures could be added. The barge was towed to a position above Rough Sands sandbar where its hold was intentionally flooded so that the hulk sank to a resting place on the sandbar. The structure now visible above the waterline is the superstructure of the vessel.

          So yeah, definitely n

      • Also, IIRC, Sealand, which is a floating fortress that was abandoned in international waters, apparently has a hosting company. They make it a point to host things that might be illegal in other countries (the exception being child pornogrpahy and spam).

        Except that after people started flicking "terrorist" cards to the table, they changed the policy to exclude anything that's against "commonly accepted international good practices" or some other vague crud like that. We've got a loooooong way to go to K

  • Reverse a Ruling... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Mastadex ( 576985 )
    Now why doesnt the US government take a lesson from its northern neighbors and reverse a few rulings....

    *achem* Patriot Act *cough*

  • In Australia ... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This remains the case. For the purposes of defamation, the relevant jurisdiction is that where the material was published in the legal sense of the word, meaning 'where it was communicated to a person other than the plaintiff'. The location where a matter is read or heard is the location at which that matter will be considered to have been 'published'

    Thus it was held by the High Court (Gutnick v Dow Jones) that an American company (Dow Jones) publishing defamatory imputations about an Australian citizen,
    • actually, I just thought the decision in Gutnick did make perfect sense.

      I've also explained the Gutnick decision to several non-legal friends, and they all thought that it was reasonable to hold someone to account for damage caused in Australia, regardless of the physical origin of the damage.

      pity I don't have any mod points today, to mod up your post. I was going to mention Gutnick - but u beat me to it !

      Get the whole case here :
      http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/5 6 .html [austlii.edu.au]

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