Category Archives: Defamation and Privacy
Gary Chan, ‘Corporate defamation: reputation, rights and remedies’
Abstract: This paper examines fundamental issues concerning a corporation’s right to sue for defamatory attacks on its reputation, the scope of the right and the remedies available. It first outlines the opposed positions in England and Australia, respectively. It also argues that a corporation, save for a government corporation that exercises governmental functions based on [...]
Richard J Peltz-Steele, ‘The New American Privacy’
Abstract: Conventional wisdom paints US and European approaches to privacy at irreconcilable odds. But that portrayal overlooks a more nuanced reality of privacy in American law. The free speech imperative of US constitutional law since the civil rights movement shows signs of tarnish. And in areas of law that have escaped constitutionalization, such as fair-use [...]
Robert Walker, ‘Developing the Common Law: How Far is Too Far?’
Abstract: This piece examines situations in which judges are called upon to develop and modify the common law. By reference to a number of recent developments in the United Kingdom and Australia, namely the law of evidence and common law privilege, the right to privacy, and causation in the tort of negligence, the author elucidates [...]
Cristina Carmody Tilley, ‘Rescuing the Dignitary Torts from the Constitution’
Abstract: The rights of individuals to recover for dignitary torts has been withering for the past forty years, since the Supreme Court constitutionalized the state common law tort of defamation in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964. The Court announced in that case that the First Amendment required it to impose high standards for [...]
Cristina Carmody Tilley, ‘Reviving Slander’
Abstract: Roman law treated differently speech restricted to small, closed communities and speech within or among large, permeable communities. Intracommunity speech was subject to unlimited tort consequences, while intercommunity speech was subject to central government regulation. As English speech law evolved, slander rules governing spoken speech became a convenient proxy for intracommunity speech regulation, while [...]
Barbara McDonald, ‘Tort’s Role in Protecting Privacy: Current and Future Directions’
Abstract: Outside the United States, the common law has not yet recognised any overarching tort of “invasion of privacy”, nor is “privacy” the compendious notion that underlies protection of various interests in the United States. Yet there is substantial protection of privacy from the common law and existing legislation. If there is a gaping hole [...]
Rebecca Tushnet, ‘Judges as Bad Reviewers: Fair Use and Epistemological Humility’
Abstract: The future of fair use depends on whether judges act like bad reviewers, or whether they behave differently in interpreting challenged works than they do in almost every other aspect of judging. Ordinarily, judges are asked to produce definitive answers about the meanings of texts. But when it comes to literary judgments, the bad [...]
Lior Strahilevitz, ‘Toward a Positive Theory of Privacy Law’
Abstract: Privacy law creates winners and losers. The distributive implications of privacy rules are often very significant, but they are also subtle. Policy and academic debates over privacy rules tend to de-emphasize their distributive dimensions, and one result is an impoverished descriptive account of why privacy laws look the way they do. The article posits [...]
Bob Tarantino, ‘Chasing Reputation: The Argument for Differential Treatment of “Public Figures” in Canadian Defamation Law’
Abstract: When comparing the seminal Supreme Court of Canada defamation decisions of the 1990s and 2000s, it is apparent that the Court’s view on the importance of protecting reputation has changed. Recent decisions hail the importance of using freedom of expression as a countervailing interest against the oft-criticized strictures of the common law of defamation. [...]
Samantha Barbas, ‘The Laws of Image’
Abstract: We live in an image society. Since the turn of the 20th century if not earlier, Americans have been awash in a sea of images throughout the visual landscape. We have become highly image-conscious, attuned to first impressions and surface appearances, and deeply concerned with our own personal images – our looks, reputations, and [...]
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