I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for the way in which he has just presented the amendment. I do not have the Booksellers Association as my client, although I did some time ago meet it in order to discuss the problem which has been eloquently described. I have, however, acted for Amazon US and Amazon UK and I would like briefly, because it harps back in a way to Clause 5 and the internet, to link that with what we are now discussing because it is quite important. If I walk into Daunt Books in London to buy a book, I am reasonably clear that if the bookseller has no reason to believe that the book is defamatory, the bookseller would have a defence under the defence of innocent dissemination as it was before 1996 and probably under Section 1 of
the 1996 Act as well. I agree that there is some lack of clarity about the effect of Section 1 on the common-law defence in that situation.
The problem becomes much more acute for the international bookseller who is selling via the internet. The case that I was once in—thank goodness it never led to an argument because it was settled—is a very good example. A book published in the United States completely wrongly and in a defamatory way attributes to police officers in Northern Ireland the killing of Catholics. It is completely disgraceful and defamatory. So the police officers go against the author who is made bankrupt. They go against the publisher who is made bankrupt, so they have no recourse at all. So they go against the international bookseller on the basis that it has sold a defamatory book on the internet. When we buy that on our computers online, whether from Amazon US or Amazon UK, that is an act of publication. There is therefore publication by the bookseller of something that is defamatory and therefore Amazon is liable. Amazon, shipping the book from its warehouse in California, has absolute immunity under US law. Amazon does not have immunity under UK law, nor should it, and the same applies to Amazon UK.
The practical problem is: what is the position of the international bookseller? It can try to rely on Section 1 of the 1996 Act. The problem with that is that it is quite narrow and very unclear as to how it applies. It can try to rely on the e-commerce directive and to give new meaning to Section 1 of the 1996 Act. It can try to rely on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights to give clarity as well. But all I can say is that some years ago I had a merry time—well paid—in trying to work out the answer to the puzzle that I just described.
If something like Amendment 50C were included, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is quite right in saying how difficult it is to clarify some of this, it would have benefit not only for the home-grown London bookseller but for the international bookseller in trying to resolve what would otherwise be extremely complicated problems that I have probably failed properly to explain.