Sharing and dissemination

Abstract

The concept of dissemination (of information in front of a large audience), as an essential element of defamation (as a tort), played a key role in many press and privacy lawsuits in Hungary in the recent decades. According to many opinions, previously, the doctrinal status of dissemination restricted the freedom of the press. Recently, the jurisprudence is under formation, and raises a number of delicate questions, especially in the case of defamation committed through or by the press. In this article, the author, a practicing lawyer, presents the evolution of court practice and its impact on news publishers, editorial offices and journalistic activities largely through his own cases. The descriptions of the legal cases are more detailed than usual, since the entire documentation of most of the legal cases is available to the author, so he interprets the arguments listed in the cases, not only on the basis of judgment extracts.