Foreign publishers contemplate abandoning the market
Publishers, human rights groups and campaigners have expressed “substantial and increasing concern,” according to a memorandum submitted to a select committee of British MPs, that Britain’s reputation for “libel tourism” will force them to abandon the sale of newspaper and magazines and even block access to their websites. In the past decades, several book publishers have been successfully prosecuted under strict libel laws for comments protected by free-speech laws in their own countries. The penalties, they argue, are far out of proportion to often tiny British readership. The memorandum states: “Leading US newspapers are actively considering abandoning the supply of the 200-odd copies they make available for sale in London—mainly to Americans who want full details of their local news and sport. They do not make profits out of these minimal and casual sales and they can no longer risk losing millions of dollars in a libel action which they would never face under US law.”