Background
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
Read more about this topic: Innocent Dissemination
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)