Recent press reporting about the number of rich people coming to London in order to pursue libel claims because of the plaintiff friendly laws in the UK has led to London being described as the libel capital of the world. In fact the UK’s laws are so plaintiff friendly that some US jurisdictions are considering ways of restricting the UK court’s dispositions against US citizens and companies, particularly the press, due to the UK libel law’s conflict with the US Constitutional “Right to Free Speech”. They might spend their time better in fixing their broken patent and copyright system, as the US is earning a reciprocal reputation as a haven for copyright trolls. Here’s a clue, “PROTECT IP” doesn’t do it. My thinking, reading and writing about intellectual property law has led me to coming to believe that the UK Libel vs US Patent Laws are both dysfunctional. …
The right to be wrong in public
Reading the New Statesman, over the last few days, and they state that in the UK, journalists can defend themselves against the allegation of inaccuracy. Judges will test them on how hard they worked to verify the quality/accuracy of the information, was there an urgent need to publish, did the journalist/publisher present it as fact or with caveats and was the other side of the story presented. (For more see, “Truth, Lies & Fools“.)
ooOOOoo
Originally published on my sun/oracle blog, republished here in June 2016. …