Real History and Traditional Enemies in Australia

Posted Tuesday, December 10, 2002

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

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

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.

Gutnick Melbourne businessman Joseph Gutnick has alleged he was defamed in an October 2000 article that appeared in Dow Jones's New York-based Barron's magazine and was also made available on the Internet (the Barron's Web site is www.barrons.com). The decision has potentially major ramifications for Internet publishing world-wide.

The High Court upheld the Supreme Court of Victoria's finding that publication of the Internet article occurred in Victoria where it was downloaded. Dow Jones had claimed it was published only in New Jersey, where it was originally uploaded to the Internet. The High Court made no findings on the merits of the defamation action itself. The defamation case can now proceed in Victoria's Supreme Court.

Dow Jones had argued that exposing Internet publishers to defamation actions in jurisdictions where the material was downloaded was unfair, and could restrict information being made available on the Internet.

But in a written judgment, the High Court said that due weight must be given to the fact that a plaintiff was likely to seek defamation only if the plaintiff had a reputation in the place where publication was made, and where a judgment would be of real value to the plaintiff. "The value that a judgment would have may be much affected by whether it can be enforced in a place where the defendant has assets," the High Court said.

"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.