Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
7-2012
Abstract
Hyperlinks make the World Wide Web go round. They find and connect information and content from a wealth of sources on the web including, from time to time, defamatory material. Newton, the owner and operator of a website in British Columbia, posted an article entitled “Free Speech in Canada”. The article itself was not alleged to be defamatory of Crookes, a politician. However, it incorporated hyperlinks to other internet websites that contained defamatory material. Notwithstanding requests from Crookes and his lawyer, Newton refused to remove the hyperlinks. Did Newton’s act of hyperlinking to internet websites constitute “publication” of the defamatory material? The Supreme Court of Canada in Crookes v Newton [2011] 3 S.C.R. 269 responded with an emphatic “no”. Though a correct outcome on the facts, there were three distinct judicial approaches emanating from the court that bear scrutiny.
Keywords
Defamation, Publication, Hyperlinks
Discipline
Internet Law
Publication
Law Quarterly Review
Volume
128
First Page
346
Last Page
351
ISSN
0023-933X
Publisher
Sweet and Maxwell
Citation
CHAN, Gary Kok Yew.
Defamation via hyperlinks: More than meets the eye. (2012). Law Quarterly Review. 128, 346-351.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1915
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2297709