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RE: A Case of Free Speech Boundaries
The report is unnecessarily alarmist.
There are two possibly libellous parts: a speech and the website.
On defamatory speech, there is no question that you can sue if indeed it was
slanderous.
On the website, it's probably a favourite question of any law class dealing
with the Internet--can a website alone create liability.
Conceptually, why not? If a libellous remark is made about me and it is
written and printed, why should liability disappear if it was posted on the
web.
The argument that it is international is false. US celebrities have sued US
magazines in UK because UK laws (from which the Commonwealth derived their
libel laws) are plaintiff-friendly.
In practice, there is the practical issue of jurisdiction. That is, sure you
may sue but can you collect? I stand to be corrected but it seems to me
there are two ways for a court to have jurisdiction: first, the defendant
agrees to submit to the court in the jurisdiction. Second, in many (if not
most or all) jurisdictions, the defendant needs a minimum presence in
jurisdiction to be sued. In sum, it looks like a mere web presence and
nothing else will not create liability for a website.
Ang Peng Hwa
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Goldstein [mailto:goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 8:20 AM
> To: APPLe
> Subject: A Case of Free Speech Boundaries
>
>
> A Case of Free Speech Boundaries (Wired)
> A pending libel suit in New York now stands to test -- and
> potentially redraw -- some of the boundaries of journalistic free
> speech on the Internet.
>
> The case concerns Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, general director and
> majority owner of the National Bank of Mexico, also known as Banamex.
> In 1997, this prominent Mexican billionaire and Salinista investor
> was the subject of a series of 15 investigative reports in the
> Merida, Mexico daily newspaper Por Esto that fingered him as a major
> narcotics trafficker between Colombia and the United States.
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43583,00.html
>
> =====
> David Goldstein
> 2/3 Belmont Ave, Glen Iris 3146, Australia
> email: Goldstein_David@yahoo.com.au
> phone: +61 3 9885 0601 (home)
> +61 418 228 605 (mobile)
>
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