Publishers Once Again Seek Federal Law To Fight 'Libel Tourism';
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 02/17/2009
- Publishers renew battle
- House bill passed last year not good enough
- Protections needed for publishers in Internet age
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The Association of American Publishers (AAP) last week urged Congress to once again address a “libel tourism” bill that would protect U.S. authors from exploiting “plaintiff-friendly foreign libel laws” to effectively suppress speech protected by the First Amendment. In a statement submitted at oversight hearings last week, AAP officials told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law that libel tourism is a growing concern for AAP members in a wired world.
“The sale of books over the Internet exposes U.S. authors and publishers to the danger of being sued almost anywhere in the world,” the statement read, noting that “libel tourist litigation remains a threat in any country where our strong constitutional free speech protections are absent.”
Alms for Jihad
The libel tourism cause came to international prominence in summer, 2007, after Cambridge University Press (CUP) rescinded publication of J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins’s Alms for Jihad, in the face of another controversial libel suit lodged by Khalid bin Mahfouz in a British Court. In a move that garnered significant media coverage worldwide, CUP was forced to pulp copies of the book, put the book out of print, ask libraries to pull the book from the shelves, pay damages, and issue a public apology on its web site.
In response, New York State and Illinois passed its own libel tourism laws after New York-based author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued in a British court by Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz over her book Funding Evil. In its statement, AAP said the state laws underscored the need for a federal law to address the problem on a national scale. Last year, the House passed, HR 6146, a bill that would prohibit U.S. courts from recognizing a foreign defamation judgment “based upon a publication concerning a public figure or a matter of public concern” unless the court determined that the foreign judgment satisfies the free speech and free press protections guaranteed by the First Amendment. A law closely modeled after New York’s Libel Terrorism Protection Act.
The Senate however, failed to act, either on the House bill, or on its own libel tourism bill, (S.2977). The Senate approach would create “a federal cause of action” to determine if a foreign defamation suit brought as a result of publication or speech in the United States would be allowable under U.S. law. The bill would also enable a U.S. author or publisher sued for libel in a foreign court to collect treble damages if a U.S. court determines a foreign plaintiff “intentionally engaged in a scheme” to suppress an author’s First Amendment rights.
AAP urges stronger law
With the new Congress now seated AAP told the Subcommittee that the bill that passed in the House last fall did not go far enough. AAP recommended the inclusion of provisions to enable those targeted by foreign libel tourist judgments to counter-sue in U.S. courts for declaratory relief and compensatory damages. The complete text of the statement can be found on the AAP web site.
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