Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A Victory for Freer Expression Online in Canada

Off topic but important news:

The courageous Jon Newton and his excellent libel lawyer, Dan Burnett, have won an important victory in BC against Wayne Crookes. The Court held that the mere provision of a link to a defamatory third party website without a positive editorial comment on that material:
  • does not lead to a presumption that persons read the contents of the website and used the hyperlink to access the defamatory words, and that
  • reference to an article containing defamatory content without repetition of the comment itself or endorsement of it should not be found to be a republication of such defamatory content
Here's the judgment.

Essentially, the Court held that a link is much the same as a footnote, except a lot more convenient.

Congratulations to Messrs. Newton and Burnett.

HK

1 comment:

  1. Burnett did an video interview with a j-school student and said there could be an appeal against the ruling: http://www.newslab.ca/?p=114

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