I think (IANAL) is that in libel publishing is the offence - so if you publish a copy of the libel you have committed the same offence - so "is a hyperlink publ

I think (IANAL) is that in libel publishing is the offence - so if you publish a copy of the libel you have committed the same offence - so "is a hyperlink publishing a copy?" is the question. In a torrent the offence is something like "making available a copyright file for download" so the argument is that a torrent (which doesn't itself contain any of the copyright file) and a link to the torrent are equally "making available".