A statement is seditious if it "brings into hatred or contempt" either the Queen or her heirs, the government and constitution, either House of Parliament, the administration of justice, if it incites people to attempt to change any matter of Church or State established by law (except by lawful means), or if it promotes discontent among or hostility between British subjects.
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John Peter Zenger was arrested and imprisoned for seditious libel in 1734 after his newspaper criticized the colonial governor of New York.
Findley was elected as an Australian Labor Party member for the Victorian Legislative Assembly seat of Melbourne in 1900 but was expelled from parliament soon after on 25 June 1901 for seditious libel as editor of the Toscin for republishing a Dublin Irish People article on King Edward VII.
He was a vocal opponent of the reformer Robert Gourlay and helped bring charges of seditious libel against Bartemas Ferguson, then editor of the Niagara Spectator, for publishing an article written by Gourlay.
Ivess probably found employment rapidly as the manager of the New Zealand Celt, the Irish Catholic Party's newspaper whose proprietor John Manning was charged with seditious libel for erecting a memorial to the Fenian martyrs of Manchester in the Hokitika Cemetery.