The libel action against Demon Internet is being brought by a British physicist, Laurence Godfrey, over a defamatory newsgroup message.

He says a forged message was posted in soc.culture.thai in 1997, purportedly coming from him and containing damaging allegations of a personal nature.

Mr Godfrey said he had asked Demon to remove the posting but the ISP refused. The message had been copied to its servers and many others around the world carrying newsgroup messages.

Net precedent

His solicitor, Nick Braithwaite of Bindman and partners, says an application will be made in court in London. It will ask a judge to strike out part of Demon's defence relating to Section One of the 1996 Defamation Act.

This is the "Internet defence" of innocent distribution, where ISPs can argue they were storing and passing on data and messages without being aware of their content.

Mr Braithwaite said he believed they could not rely on that defence because they had been served notice about the offending message. A precedent might be set by the court's judgerment.

This is not Mr Godfrey's first Net libel case. He accepted a payment into court in 1996 from another physicist, Philip Hallam-Baker.