The bizarrely overreaching publication ban sought by the lawyer for accused serial killer Robert Pickton has gone nowhere.

An excerpt from the CTV.ca story:

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has rejected a bid from accused serial killer Robert Pickton's lawyers who wanted to impose an exceptionally tight publication ban on his trial.

Pickton's lawyers said they were worried that even though a publication ban would forbid Canadian media outlets from reporting on court proceedings, it would not stop Internet sites based outside of Canada to publish reports of what's heard in court.

But lawyers for various news organizations argued the ban the defence was seeking was unworkable. They also noted that, except for one incident early in proceedings, none of the sensational details from the preliminary hearing in 2003 have become wide public knowledge.

What the judge did was order the news media to not publish the names and addresses of any websites that carried information that was protected by a publication ban.

However, as CTV's Todd Battis noticed, U.S. media outlets in the U.S. could likely violate the ban without facing a penalty.

And as a Globe and Mail editorial on Pickton has previously noted, it was possible to find enough fair-minded jurors to give Paul Bernardo a fair trial despite an avalanche of pre-trial publicity.