The Supreme Court of Canada today released its judgment in Crookes v. Newton. The main issue at stake in this case was whether by posting a hyperlink to defamatory material, the person posting the link can be held responsible for defamation (i.e., whether posting a hyperlink is publication of the defamatory material for the purposes of the defamation analysis).
Thankfully, the Supreme Court came to a reasonable conclusion (in my opinion) and said "no", thus failing to completely break the internet in Canada.
The entirety of the decision can be found here:
Summary of facts from the SCC website:
http://scc.lexum.org/en/2011/2011scc47/2011scc47.html
Quote:
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The Appellant Wayne Crookes alleges that he has been defamed in various articles which first appeared on the Internet in 2005. The Respondent, Jon Newton, owns and operates the website www.p2pnet.net. On July 18, 2006, he authored an article, headed “Free Speech in Canada”, which hyperlinked one of the articles, as well as the website containing the other impugned articles. Those articles, in turn, were hyperlinked to one another. Mr. Crookes takes the position that, by creating these hyperlinks, or by refusing to remove the hyperlinks when advised of their defamatory character, Mr. Newton became a publisher of the impugned articles found at the hyperlinked websites. Mr. Crookes and his company, the Appellant West Coast Title Search Ltd., brought an action against Mr. Newton for damages for defamation.
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