| Abstract |
A
judgment in Australia's High Court may mean the Internet, once regarded
as the last bastion of freedom of speech, will have to bow to the laws of
defamation in foreign countries. In the landmark ruling Gutnick v Dow
Jones the court said a story published by Dow Jones on a US-hosted Web
site was grounds for a defamation law suit to be heard in Australia where
libel laws are more restrictive than the US. The effect of the decision
is that an Internet article is published wherever it is read, rather than
where the publisher is based. Media commentators and Internet campaigners
have criticised the decision claiming it will open the floodgates for a
wave of "forum shopping" by lawyers around the world acting for clients
who claim to have been defamed thereby seriously undermining the Internet's
reputation for freedom of speech. While the Australian High Court's decision
has no binding authority on any other country it may prove highly persuasive
in other common law countries in the Commonwealth. US cyberlaw experts,
who probably have the most to lose, have lambasted the Australian court's
decision with one commentator describing is as "provincial in the extreme."
This paper will examine whether the Australian High Court decision will
have a chilling effect on free speech on the Internet or whether the requirement
for Internet publishers to consider defamation laws outside their country
of origin is a just acknowledgment of legal difference.
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