Yesterday, commenting on James D. Miller's TCS article, I speculated on the possibility that Congress might seek to broaden libel laws in the US as a way of reigning in pesky bloggers. Today, also at TCS, the Englishman Tim Worstall goes much further, raising the possibility that American bloggers could be subjected to Britain's notorious libel laws for the content of their posts that are downloaded at read in the UK.
He cites a few examples, including an Australian suit against Dow Jones for an article about an Australian which was written in America but downloaded and read in Australia. DJ just settled on that suit. Worstall's point: although American bloggers may not worry about expanded libel laws at home -- not yet, anyway -- they might be forced to worry about them in the UK and Australia.
[W]hen you write about foreigners, it all becomes a great deal more complicated. If you want to slag off some idiot English writer (me, to offer up an example), you need to know what are the libel and defamation laws in Portugal, where I live, perhaps also of England, where I do business and thus have a reputation to protect. The essential point is that publication is deemed to take place where the download, the reading, takes place, not where you are, or your server. (I would point out that you really, really do not want to get sued for libel in the UK. Not only is it almost impossible to defend yourself, you having to prove that your contentions were correct, but if you lose you have to pay everyone's legal bills, $500,000 minimum, plus damages.)
He concludes:
Now I don't want to scare you, but this is an important point, something that someone needs to solve. How it is going to be solved I have no idea, but the situation at present is that your words, your blog posts, your comments added in forums, they are subject to the different and sometimes highly restrictive laws of every jurisdiction on the planet where they are downloaded and read. As I say above I'm not too worried about being chased by the representatives of whichever murderous thug I happen to insult this week or next, but there is one character that strikes the fear of God into me, the English libel lawyer, and everything I write, just as everything you do, is subject to his beady little eye and hunger for fees.
Let's hope this matter does receive some attention. Lawyer bloggers out there: any comments?
| Mar. 29, 2005 | 9:44 AM