Legal Research

Crookes v. Newton Live Tweets From SCC

By Shaunna Mireau

Argument is taking place right now at the SCC regarding online defamation in hyperlinks. The Montreal Gazette has a nice overview of the matter to date

Live tweeting can be followed by searching for #Crookes on Twitter.

Who would have guessed a couple of years ago that someone could sit in the gallery at the SCC and let the world know what questions the court is asking. Here is a sample thanks to tweets by cippic:

#Crookes Q: Does defamation only arise once a hyperlinker has been given notice of the defamation? A: No.

Q: Knowledge converts something that is not “publication” into something that is? A: Yes. Q: Is there precedent for this? A: No.

Justice Fish has an interesting take (this is a tweet stream so read the quote from the bottom):

cippic
#Crookes A: Yes. Q: It is defamation when you hand someone an article, regardless of whether or not you underline the defamatory words.
21 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
cippic
#Crookes A: Yes. Q: (Fish) – adding another element? Directing attention to specific parts of article that are defamatory?
23 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
cippic
#Crookes Q: (from Justice Fish – a very big fish!) Distinguish between linking to a particular article v. linking to a site’s home page?

As a blogger, I have a deeply vested interest in the outcome of Crookes v. Newton. It will be interested to look back at the tweet stream when the decision comes down to see if there is any coorelation between the reports in real time reflecting the ‘mood’ of the court (for lack of a better phrase) and the outcome.

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Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 07, 2010 (boomark / email).