Re:How I got sued by Facebook (2010)
by RyanMcGreal on Friday March 25, 2011 @09:21AM
(#2368333)
A case before the Supreme Court of Canada right now [1] touches on a similar untested premise of the open web. At issue is whether a hyperlink constitutes a citation or a republication of that page.
In this case, the plaintiff is accusing the defendant of defamation for linking to web pages the plaintiff argues are defamatory. (Aside: compared to the US, defamation law in Canada is weighed much more strongly toward the plaintiff than the defendant.)
Lower courts have decided that simply linking to a defamatory web page does not constitute defamation, unless the link is provided for the purpose of endorsing the defamatory material, in which case it is the endorsement of the link that constitutes defamation, and not the link itself.
The problem in Canada, as in the US, is that governments have not kept up with legislation governing the legality of various internet-specific activities, like hyperlinking and so on. That has left the courts to try and decide through precedent how to handle these conflicts.
In this case, the plaintiff is accusing the defendant of defamation for linking to web pages the plaintiff argues are defamatory. (Aside: compared to the US, defamation law in Canada is weighed much more strongly toward the plaintiff than the defendant.)
Lower courts have decided that simply linking to a defamatory web page does not constitute defamation, unless the link is provided for the purpose of endorsing the defamatory material, in which case it is the endorsement of the link that constitutes defamation, and not the link itself.
The problem in Canada, as in the US, is that governments have not kept up with legislation governing the legality of various internet-specific activities, like hyperlinking and so on. That has left the courts to try and decide through precedent how to handle these conflicts.
[1] http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/case-dossier/cms-sgd/sum-som-eng.as...