Libel law reform: Don't Panic! It's a Good Thing

[matgb]

Several people are linking to an ill-informed post by Mike Smithson at Political Betting entitled Is Labour about to clamp-down on the blogsphere? about possible reforms to the UK defamation and libel laws. I have no idea what Mike's source is, but mine is open and to the point. Padraig from Index on Censorship attended a Westminster Hall debate this week and wrote it up for Liberal Conspiracy.

He, and I, are very hopeful about the results of the debate, and the Govt has agreed a consultation that will pay specific attention to libel and the internet. As this is something I've been calling for for some time, it's great to see progress being made. My comment to Mr Smithson is below the cut for those that don't like wading through 350+ off topic tangents about unrelated subjects and discussions from previous thread:

ETA, before the cut, Padraig's posted an update on LC, definitely worth a read for everyone that allows open comments and talks about, well, people on their journal.
ETA2: John Hemming MP also agrees on comment screening—"In the mean time (and rightly) we have the odd situation that someone who moderates comments can be liable for libel, but someone who doesn't moderate comments cannot."

Way to cry wolf Mike, seriously, you seem to be completely misinterpreting what’s going on. An adjournment debate was held in the Hall this week, with cross party support for consultation on reform of the libel and defamation law, paying specific interest in the effect it has on the internet.

Padraig from Index on Censorship was there, and wrote it up for LC:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/12/17/libel-progress-at-commons/

If you publish something that’s defamatory, you’re already subject to libel proceedings, making it a small claims court issue would reduce the costs to you, not increase them.

In addition, by allowing free comment without moderation you give yourself an absolute defence under law, as long as you remove defamatory remarks in comments when informed—the poster would naturally still be liable for slander as per Eady’s recent judgement.

If you pre-moderate, then you become liable because you’re actively publishing them.

We need reform to the libel laws as bloggers, and the Govt has said it will implement a full consultation. Otherwise we can expect to see many many repeats of the Usmanov affair and similar.

This sort of inflammatory ill judged post makes it less likely we’ll get the reforms we need. Serioiusly, you’re one of the top blogs online, the consultation would be happy to work with you if you got in touch, as would Index on Censorship and similar (I’ve pointed them here already as it’s much more their field than mine).

I added a link to the Eady case as it's important, other useful links are:
Defamation
Basic Libel for Idiots

All three have been in my 'to post' folder for far too long. Really should remember that a quick knockabout post with links is frequently more effective than articles so well researched they never actually see the light of day.

Comments

[paulrattew.livejournal.com]

If anything, reforming the laws on libel and defamation will be a good thing for the blogging community. Most law rewrites are, these days, exercises in clarification and cleaning up language - hardly a bad thing. If the laws are made more clear and easily understandable (they're not that difficult at the moment mind you) then surely it will just mean that bloggers know where they stand and can post things with a greater degree of confidence. I doubt that the rules will really be tightened as I don't think that there would be enough political support for it (especially if you consider that many of the things said in political campaigns regarding opponents walk a tight rope in terms of libel and defamation).

[matgb]

Precisely, the worse that can happen is that we get the existing law, as is, clarified.


But there is zero chance whatsoever that reqriting the existing law into modern language could pass the commons.

You know why?

I write something libellous, you read it. The defamed sues me. They can also sue my ISP, for transmitting the libel to LJ. They can sue LJ (who'll tell them to get lost as they're USian). They can also sue your ISP, and their own ISP, and indeed the ISP of anyone who can be shown to have read the post.

If you host your own domain, they can also sue the domain registrar (if UK based) and the hosting company. And any resellers along the way. There are some defences available, but they're not concrete. And the main defense is you have to remove the supposed defamatory content when informed.

Regardless of whether it's actually defamation. So a UK based host is likely to roll over and shut your site down if they get a legal letter. It's very rare the law is abused in that way, but it's been done.

Can't see that getting passed as current law myself, which means things can be improved.

Removing the ability to sue a paperboy for delivering a newspaper would be nice as well.

[paulrattew.livejournal.com]

Any such rewrite would have to include a degree of liability limitation. The idea of reasonable action and reasonable control are already integral parts of other sections of legislation (such as tax) and with care an approach could be adopted which is, at heart, principles based. This would allow the real action of the law to be determined through case law, while still clarifying the principles enough to give more certainty. Clarification, even if it is just of the current situation, would in itself reduce the ability of large groups to launch suits just to get things shut down (when they have no real grounds).

Moving towards principles based legislation is not something that the British Government is all that good at though. They have tried (and are continuing to do so) with the tax legislation. This has some benefits, but falls down in many ways, especially in that principles are subordinate to detail in the majority of the legislation, therefore devaluing principle based legislation when the two interact (and there is no specified precedence given to the newer legislation).

There is obviously scope for improving what we have, but I think that no matter what the law ends up as it's interpretation by judges (i.e. the case law) is what will, and does, really matter. Your example is theoretically accurate, but would never hold water in court as almost all judges would throw out such escalation as ludicrous. Legislators are often more than happy to let the judiciary set the real boundaries and this is generally (obviously not always) a good thing.

[fridgemagnet.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly don't see any terrible omg kill free speech legislation being proposed, but I don't really see very much else there apart from a few MPs batting a few ideas about to no real purpose. They should get blogs.

[matgb]

The purpose was to get a minister to listen to the legit concerns we all have over the defamation laws insanity.

She's promised a consultation paper, which is something we've needed since, oh, John Major shut down the New Statesman for telling the truth.

Hall debates are always waffle, that's part of the point, but a minister has to sit through and listen to them. Which is rarely effective, but can be, especially with cross party support on a non-partizan issue.

[fridgemagnet.livejournal.com]

Mm. I won't hold my breath tbh.