It's a subscription only sevice but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the cross jurisdictional Gutnick v Dow Jones internet defamation case has been settled out of court. Dow Jones lost their fight to have the Australian courts declare that the case should have been heard in the US. Interesting timing in the light of the UK Court of Appeal decision in the Don King v Lennox Lewis case last week.

Coincidentally, a Canadian archaeologist was awarded large damages in another Net libel case last week. The report claims there has been very little case law in the area of Internet defamation but actually there have been quite a few cases in the US streching back to Cubby v Compuserve in the early 1990s, Stratton v Prodigy and a string of others since. In Autralia Gutnick v Dow Jones has been the precendent setter and in the UK it was Godfrey v Demon. So there are plenty of legal arguments available for Canadian judges to peruse on matters of principle and law, albeit from different juridictions.