Comment 41577

By Robert D (anonymous) | Posted June 04, 2010 at 19:26:57

I'd just like to point out that while the current law in defamation may be clear, it is in fact common law, not based on any statue or act of parliament, and it can change, and evolve based on the decisions of future judges. The internet and blogging has and will continue to challenge the law. The law will have to evolve some creative solutions.

Recently courts have held that publishing a hyperlink to defamatory content hosted elsewhere is not itself "publication" of that defamatory comment. Alright, well what about quoting someone's message in a forum such as RTH? Say Jason makes a defamatory comment here in his comments (sorry Jason, just using you as an example), and I quote him in reply and state that I disagree with him. By quoting him am I republishing the defamation and now liable? Is Ryan liable because someone made a defamatory comment using his website? How different are these examples from what Ryan and Cal did, publishing essentially a verbatim quote from a letter Mahesh copied to them?

All of these quetions will have answers eventually, and I think that judges will have to realize that the complexities of new media require new rules, not just the same old ones they've been using for newspapers.

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