One of the well known facts out there is that defamation law in the UK is positively insane and tilted in favor of the plaintiff that the phrase”Libel Tourism,” has been coined.

It places the burden on the defendant to prove that the statement is true, and in the case of web publications, every web page served is treated as a separate publication for the determination of damages.

Well, as one of the few growth industries in the UK, what with investment banking in the toilet, and the fact that this is a useful way for politicians to browbeat the press, there has been little, if any, movement to change these laws.

That being said, it looks like someone has gotten a bit of a clue, and decided that each hit on a web page is like each newspaper delivered, so , but it now appears that some common sense in terms of the internet, where the government is proposing to change the law so that each web page hit is not another incident of defamation:

The Government proposes changing the law so that a ‘single publication’ rule applies. “A possible alternative to the multiple publication rule would be to adopt a single publication rule,” said the consultation. “This would mean that instead of the limitation period running from the time of each publication of the defamatory material, it would run from the date of the first publication, even if copies of the material continued to be made and re-published years later.”

“A single publication rule would provide clarity and prevent the possibility of open-ended liability. It would also remove some of the potential obstacles presented to defendants by the multiple publication rule, such as the possibility of having to mount a defence against an old claim,” it said.

BTW, if you want to know just how f$#@ed up British defamation law is, note the precedent cited in the article, “

The Times newspaper took a case to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the multiple publication rule was so onerous a burden for newspapers in the internet age that it had a ‘chilling effect’ on their right to free speech, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Court enforces.

The Court, though, ruled that a precedent from the 19th century involving a servant of the Duke of Brunswick looking up an article in a library forming the basis of a defamation suit meant that UK law did not breach the Times‘s rights.

Looking up an article in the library is defamation? This is truly whack.