Legal: "Canadian Supreme Court Rules You Can't Defame Someone With a Hyperlink"

From Ars Technica:

You may now exhale, Canadian journalists, bloggers, and Twitter users. Canada’s Supreme Court has unanimously decided that posting a hyperlink to an allegedly defamatory article does not constitute defamation itself.
“I would conclude that a hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as ‘publication’ of the content to which it refers,” opined Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella, speaking for the panel reviewing the matter of Crookes versus Newton.
The court’s decision adds that “only when a hyperlinker presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that actually repeats the defamatory content, should that content be considered to be ‘published’ by the hyperlinker.”

Read the Complete Ars Technica Article
See Also: Supreme Court hyperlink decision a victory for free speech (via CBC)

Filed under: News, Patrons and Users