From: j.stokes@student.anu.edu.au (Jason Stokes)
Newsgroups: wa.politics,wa.general,aus.politics
Subject: Re: Update on events between Univ Western Australia and D Rindos
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 09:34:36 +0700
Organization: Australian National University

In article {51rhoe$2gr@tofu.alt.net}, hjarvis@acsu.buffalo.edu (Hugh W Jarvis) wrote:


:         In other lawyers' letters to Australian newspapers, and 
: television and radio stations, they made the (rather remarkable) claim 
: that the mere publication of the Site's URL, or the creation of links to 
: it, IN AND OF ITSELF CONSTITUTES DEFAMATION!  UWA has also forced its own
: "independent" students' organization to remove links to the Site and to 
: delete material about the case.  This deleted material included newspaper 
: coverage and a speech in the West Australian Parliament!  They are also 
: rumoured to have tried to get their computing department to erradicate 
: all links from peoples' personal pages, and even from their "bookmarks" 
: files!!
Even in Australian jurisdiction, the legal theory behind this is completely bogus. A URL cannot be considered "republication" and they know it.

I wonder if their going to go after every page that links to a page that links to the site. And then every page that links to a page that links to a page that links to the site. Hey, better close down the whole network!

Hmm... what if you don't quote the URL, but instead say "lawyers say we can't publish the URL, but you'd be surprised what web indexing system come up with when you search for "Rindos" AND "Paul"

--

Jason Stokes: j.stokes@student.anu.edu.au