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Library and Information Society

Notes This statement vividly brings out the changing dimensions of knowledge and information and the
institutional mechanism to handle them.

Describe the role of library in education, research and culture.

2.5 Dissemination

A person who is found to have published a defamatory statement may evoke a defence of innocent
dissemination, which absolves him/her of liability provided that he/she had no knowledge of the
defamatory nature of the statement, and that his/her failure to detect the defamatory content was not
due to negligence. The defence, sometimes also known as “mechanical distributor”, is of concern to
Internet Service Providers because of their potential liability for defamatory material posted by their
subscribers.
The basic rule is that everyone involved in any way in the production or dissemination of defamatory
material is liable as having published it. This is because defamation is a tort of strict liability. It can
be committed unwittingly by reason of the existence of facts and circumstances unknown to the
publisher of the defamatory statement. However, some forms of distribution or dissemination are
so mechanical that a distributor ought not to be held liable unless he/she ought to have known
there was defamation involved. Therefore, a defence of innocent dissemination is conceived.
At common law, a defence of innocent dissemination is available to a person who, neither knowingly
nor negligently, had merely a subordinate role in the dissemination of the matter containing the
defamatory statement.
In Vizetelly v. Mudie’s Select Library, a circulating library provided to subscribers a book on Stanley’s
search for Emir Pasha in Africa, which turned out to be defamatory. The issue was whether the
library can claim protection under innocent dissemination. Lord Justice Romer described the defence
as follows:
That innocent of any knowledge of the libel contained in the work disseminated by, that there was
nothing in the work or the circumstances under which it came to [them] which ought to have led to
suppose that it contained a libel, and that, when the work was disseminated by it was not by any
negligence on part that did not know that it contained the libel, then, although the dissemination of
the work by was primâ facie publication of it, may nevertheless, on proof of the before-mentioned
facts, be held not to have published it.
Romer L.J., at 180, also noted that the defence places a heavy burden upon the defendant to show
that they were not negligent. His Lordship held that the defendant library was liable for having
negligently overlooked the publisher’s request for return of the offending book.
Therefore, the defence involves three limbs:
1. The defendant did not know that the publication complained of contained a libel;
2. The defendant had no grounds to suppose that it was likely to contain defamatory mat-
ter; and
3. The absence of knowledge was not due to any negligence on the defendant’s part.
However, it appears that a printer cannot evoke this defence. This has been criticized as “illogical”
and has been explained as an exception that made sense in the days of primitive technology only -
when printers used to read what they print, which is no longer the case.

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