Material
published on the internet is
deemed to have been published
in the place it is viewed
online, not the country of
origin. — Australian court
ruling

David
Irving comments:

I HAVE A personal interest in this article, about one of the traditional enemies of free speech in Australia. The plaintiff, Mr Joseph
Gutnick, is one of the multi-millionaire businessmen who had a prominant role in lobbying
Australian governments (past
& present) to prevent my obtaining an entry visa to lecture. Others include the
Leibler brothers (Mark
(below) &
Isi).

Gutnick’s influence on Prime
Minister John Howard was
exposed during last year’s
federal election, when a letter
from Gutnick to Howard was leaked
to the media. The contents were
essentially a threat to withhold
further political donations to
Howard’s Liberal party if
Gutnick’s demands were not met.
My Australian sources suspect
that Howard’s office leaked the
letter to embarass Gutnick, so
the allegiance may be less strong
now than it once was. Related
file:

Our dossier on some of the origins of anti-Semitism

David
Irving and Australia

Worldwide fallout for Internet in defamation judgement

LIBEL cases based on internet material could be mounted anywhere in the world, after a landmark judgment handed down by the High Court today.

International news service Dow Jones failed in its bid to have a defamation action brought by mining magnate Joseph
Gutnick heard in the United
States.

In a judgment with implications for internet publishing worldwide, the High
Court unanimously dismissed Dow Jones’ appeal and gave the green light for the defamation case to be heard in Mr
Gutnick’s home state of Victoria.

The landmark
judgment means material published on
the internet is deemed to have been
published in the place it is viewed
online, not the country of
origin.

There were some limits on defamation actions, the court said.

In its judgment the court dismissed Dow
Jones’ concerns of multiple defamation actions brought as a result of one publication, saying subsequent legal action could be found to be vexatious.

It also noted a claim for damages could be brought only if the person had a reputation in the place where the publication was made.

“Finally if the two considerations just mentioned are not thought to limit the scale of the problem confronting those who would make information available on the worldwide web, the spectre which Dow Jones sought to conjure up in the present appeal
– of a publisher forced to consider every article it publishes on the worldwide web against the defamation laws of every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – is seen to be unreal when it is recalled

that in all except the most unusual of cases, identifying the person about whom material is to be published will readily identify the defamation law to which that person may resort,” the court said in its majority judgment.

Mr Gutnick had taken action against the
US-based news service for an article on the Barron’s website hosted by The Wall
Street Journal.

AAP

December 9, 2002

Dow
Jones Must Defend Action On Web Defamation in Australia

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MELBOURNE, Australia — Business news publisher Dow Jones & Co. will have to defend a defamation action in Australia’s
Victoria State after the nation’s High
Court unanimously rejected its appeal to have the case heard in the U.S.

“The specter which Dow Jones sought to conjure up in the present appeal, of a publisher forced to consider every article it publishes on the World Wide Web against the defamation laws of every country from
Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is seen to be unreal when it is recalled that in all except the most unusual of cases, identifying the person about whom material is to be published will readily identify the defamation law to which the person may resort,” the High Court said.

Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street
Journal and its international and online editions, as well as
Barron’s and other magazines and the Dow Jones Newswires and other newswires. It co-owns CNBC financial television operations in Asia and Europe, and provides news content to CNBC in the
U.S.