Hyperlinks Do Not Republish Alleged Defamatory Material

Richard Raysman is a Partner in our New York office

In In re Phila. Newspapers LLC, 690 F.3d 161 (3d Cir. 2012), the Third Circuit held, among other things, that linking to previously published material is not "republication" under the single publication rule. The appeals court affirmed the lower court's denial of certain parties' request for the allowance of administrative expense claims relating to a webpage posted by the debtor newspaper that contained links to prior stories that allegedly defamed the petitioning parties. The petitioning parties argued that the links "republished" the old articles for statute of limitations purposes, but the court held that the petitioning parties had not sustained their burden of proof in establishing entitlement to an administrative expense claim because of a failure to demonstrate a viable cause of action.

The court reasoned that Pennsylvania courts would extend the single publication rule to publicly accessible material on the Internet, such that it is the original printing of the defamatory material and not the circulation of it which results in a cause of action. Applying the single...