Stardate 20010919.1610 (On Screen): If someone writes something on the Internet and someone in another country doesn't like it, whose law covers it? The CDA decision gave very broad First Amendment protection to free expression by Americans on the Internet, but if some other nation's laws can be applied, then that could vanish like a popped soap bubble. So a recent decision by an Australian judge is particularly important, and chilling. An American publisher posted an article on a server in the US, which a man in Australia claims libeled him. The issue is whose court had jurisdiction. Dow Jones claimed that since the article was published in the US it should be tried in front of a US Court; Joe Gutnick wanted it tried in his home town in Australia. The judge there has ruled in favor of Gutnick. Dow Jones has appealed. I do not know the constitutional basis for law in Australia, but as an overall principle I feel as if this decision should be overturned. Otherwise the Australian legal system is declaring that it has power over everything published on the Internet by anyone anywhere in the world, as long as it can be accessed by anyone in Australia -- and if Australia can do that, so can anyone else. Do Australians want their own people to be sued by, for instance, people in such freedom-loving nations as Afghanistan and Myanmar and China because material posted by Australians on servers in Australia which is legal under Australian law nonetheless violates the laws in those other nations?
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