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.

Justice James Williams of the B.C. Supreme Court decided that he would not call for a stiffer ban, noting that a section of the Criminal Code that spells out the scope of publication bans in pre-trial hearings is sufficient in the Pickton case.

Instead, he explicitly ordered the media not to report the names or addresses of websites where information from pre-trial hearings might be found, as the media have done in past cases where publications bans were in effect, particularly the Gomery inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal.

"In the event that I am wrong in that regard, however, I would exercise my common law jurisdiction to order a ban in the same terms ... with respect to the posting of information on the Internet,'' he said in his ruling.

CTV's Todd Battis says the defence's concerns appeared valid.

"Keep in mind how close the New Westminster and Vancouver area is to places like Seattle," he notes. Battis adds that there is nothing to stop American news outlets from reporting on the case.

"They're not constrained by the same publication ban being in another country so they report everything. They report all the salacious details and they put it on their website."

Pickton, 55, is charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

He has not yet formally pleaded to the charges or elected whether to be tried by jury or judge alone. His trial is expected to start some time next year.