RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events internet laws

should the internet be forced to adapt to all of our current laws? if so, whose? (UN's? US's? europe's?)

issues include -- stalking, copyright, slander, etc

If they ever get serious about slander on the internet a whole bunch of us are in BIG trouble!

well, only if there's offense taken. the people who frequent these forums, anyway, seem pretty cool getting insulted and berated, as long as they all know they can dish similar shit right back. same with real life friends, no slander or lawyers involved.

however, going on to, say, the dcmbs and bashing other posters... that might not be too smart

The lawyers would have a field day with the GL boards!

flame on!

Slander is bollocks.

Only problem I see with the Internet is deviancy - kiddie porn rings, etc.

Agreed.
But truth be known, it doesn't really matter what laws they put in place for internet usage, it would be just about impossible to enforce any of them. Can you imagine if they got anal about copyright, how many fanfiction sites would be in big trouble? The internet is humoungous, and getting bigger, and there is absolutely no way that any government body would have the time or the manpower to police it. IMO.

Is it illegal for websites to change a computer's default homepage? That's an annoyance I'd like to see eliminated.

I think dial up should be against the law! After suffering through it for 4 years and having just got cable I really really want to sue AOL!!!!!!!!!

Would it be possible to create a (dot)porn, or (dot)xxx, or (dot)sex, or (dot)adult domain for porn and other adult related sites? That might make it easier to police. Also, it would be very easy to set a web browser to block out that domain, so that children couldn't get to it. Thing is, this may be an adult related site, so it would have to go under that domain too, I think, if it were to become internet law.

Just a thought.

Do you include Newsgroups in the internet?

Or is that cosidered seperate?

If there's some sort of internet law against making people puke, I'd stop posting LLance's picture in a sec.

I've got two words for you boys:

Hague Convention.

A concerted effort to introduce lowest common denominator laws for e-commerce and intellectual property.

Americans are shit scared of it because they're worried it will trample their bill of rights.

As for defamation, read this (I wrote it):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutnick_v._Dow_Jones

On 10 December 2002, the High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the Internet defamation dispute in the case of Gutnick v. Dow Jones.

United States publisher Dow Jones & Company published an article titled "Unholy Gains" in its business journal Barrons Magazine in October 2000. The article implied amongst other things that Victorian businessman Joseph Gutnick had laundered money through the jailed Victorian money launderer Nachum Goldberg. The relevant copy of Barron's Magazine sold approximatly 300,000 copies. Of these only a very small number came to Australia, but some of them were in fact sold in Victoria. The article was also available on Dow Jones' website, www.wsj.com.

Mr Gutnick sued Dow Jones in a Victorian court....The issue of choice of law was the focus of the judgment. Dow Jones wanted US law to apply, as they could enjoy the protection of free speech provided for under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.....

The interveners argued that, for the choice of law at least, in relation to the publication of defamatory material on the World Wide Web publication occurs at the point at which there is a last opportunity for the publisher to take steps to exercise control over publication, that is, they said, the point at which final editorial decisions are made and final technical work is done to upload material.

In most common law countries, a court will decline jurisdiction if there is another more appropriate forum, while in Australian a court will decline jurisdiction only if the court is a clearly inappropriate forum. This restrictive approach, in Australia, has been criticised and in a case last year two of the judges of the High Court clearly took the view that Australia should apply the more appropriate forum-test as is done in the majority of the common law world. Nevertheless, in the Gutnick case, the clearly inappropriate forum-test was reaffirmed and, consequently, it will probably not be departed from in the near future.

The court did not find reason to decline jurisdiction in the Gutnick case. In the words of Justice Mary Gaudron:

"If a plaintiff complains of multiple and simultaneous publications by a defendant of the same defamatory matter there is, in essence, a single controversy between them, notwithstanding that the plaintiff may have several causes of action governed by the laws of different jurisdictions. Accordingly, if, in such a case, an issue arises as to whether an Australian court is a clearly inappropriate forum, a very significant consideration will be whether that court can determine the whole controversy and, if it cannot, whether the whole controversy can be determined by a court of another jurisdiction. As the respondent has limited his controversy with the appellant to the publication of defamatory matter in Victoria, the controversy is one that can be determined in its entirety by the Supreme Court of that State and there can be no question of multiple suits in different jurisdictions."

In effect, when Mr Gutnick sued only in relation to publications and damages in Victoria and undertook not to sue anywhere else, he effectively "disconnected" all other forums. Of course in doing so, a plaintiff also potentially limits the damages he/she may be awarded.

The judgment has gained worldwide attention, much of which has been negative.

****

In other words, this guy sued in Australia a magazine based in the Us for defamation on the internet, and won. Free speech rights in the US didn't prevail.