If I write something defamatory about you, and publish it on the internet, there’s a word for that: libel. Here in Canada, we have libel laws. If I call you a horse thief on my blog, and you’re not a horse thief… you can sue me.
But what if someone else calls you a horse thief on their blog, and I simply link to it? Is that libel?
That’s the question at the heart of a case scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada on December 7: Crookes v. Newton. And the Court’s decision could have serious repercussions for the interconnected, hyperlinked world of the web.
To find out more about so-called “link libel,” Nora talked to David Fewer. David is the director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, which is an intervener in the case. A shorter version of this interview will air on Spark 130, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3. [runs 15:36]
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Thank you for reporting on this. As a fellow defender of citizens rights online, I've been following John Newton's case as closely as I can (time restricted by C-32 issues).
Jon Newton has a legal defence fund for this for those who agree that it is important. http://www.p2pnet.net/story/44544
Spark staff: Please watch the comments to this full interview closely. I'm not suggesting that a lawsuit against the CBC for comments made by other Canadians is inevitable, but this is indirectly about subject matter of a political nature that someone many consider to be a public figure believes that citizens shouldn't be allowed to talk about publicly.
Disclaimer – I am NOT a lawyer. That said, In the USofA, it is only libel if
1) it is false
and
2) it was intended to harm
Seems to me that linking would, by itself, fail #2 definitionally.
What if I link to your blog and then you publish something libelous?
If I link to something I know is there, but do not know is libelous, am I liable?
Is linking to something "publishing" it, or merely publishing the information that the something is there, published by someone else?
We would like to see false information NOT republished far and wide, or for that matter, at all. But what liability attaches to someone who repeats gossip, with or without the caveat "I don't know if it's true, but …"?
I'm glad I don't have to sort these things out …
hajj (at) muslimamerica.net
So… let me get this straight: Human beings shouldn't dance with lamp shades on their heads because that might lower the value of the company they work for?
Let's look closely at that.
So this "company" is a person in law, and yet this person does not exist. It is basic agreement between people, much like "money" or "the economy."
Money is just paper. It's the *idea* humans use their thinking to create that gives money its value. That's how trillions of dollars just vanished a couple of years ago. So there is no such thing as "the corporation Walmart." If everyone on Earth dies and aliens land here, they cannot find "Walmart." They can find buildings with the word "Walmart" written on them, and they can find contracts that say likewise, but the entity that *is* Walmart could not be found without the people around to think it into existence.
So a living, breathing, life-experiencing human being should subjugate their own personal freedom just so as not to lower the "value" (again, an idea) of a fictional person that the very slaves themselves created!?!?!?!
The casualness with which that Calgary lawyer suggested that this is valid, is creepy. It's not the blind corporate line that's freaky; it's that she didn't even notice that she had just put the needs of a fake human ahead of the needs of real ones.
If these are our priorities do not hope for a better world. Seriously. How would that be possible if we're more interested in maintaining our fictions than in feeding actual starving children? That we would rather see our "economy grow" rather than let real human beings dance on tables with lamp shades on their heads (if that's how they want to spend their short and precious time on Earth)?
We are volunteering for self-imposed slavery, where our master is an ethereal idea that we ourselves created. Unbelievable. It's so so *so* crazy it almost looks sane.
There had been much discussion regarding this potential several years ago. Seems it has come to pass. I for one am not all that surprised. The results will be interesting.
Unless you have direct control of the content the hyperlink links to, you can't be held responsible for that content. You could post a link to someone else's content then the content could change without your knowledge.