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William Darby

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[quote user="First Jedi"]"You obviously don''t subscribe to the Law Society gazette." Nope... and even if I did, I can''t believe it''s too common a practice, even if there have been a couple of isolated cases. Be interested if you could provide me with links of course, never to proud to be proven wrong![/quote]

Well I do and I even read it.

It is not an exercise that occupies thousands of lawyers but it is a growing source of work.  American lawyers can be much more proactive and seek cases out.   However, internet libel is a rapidly growing issue and there have been cases.  Remember also that it is the publisher as well as the author who is liable.  You may not be worth suing but Archant certainly is.

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"It is not an exercise that occupies thousands of lawyers but it is a growing source of work. American lawyers can be much more proactive and seek cases out. However, internet libel is a rapidly growing issue and there have been cases. Remember also that it is the publisher as well as the author who is liable. You may not be worth suing but Archant certainly is."

Hmmm... I thought it''s been proved 1000''s of times that site aren''t liable for the content other people put on their sites. 1000''s of times.

Otherwise, telephone companies would be aiding and abetting terrorism if a terrorist was proven to use a phone.

Again, I call bobbins on this.

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"Why do you think Archant remove libellous posts?"

Good point - there is a lot of cases of people doing things in fear of things that aren''t necessarily correct.

Not to say that it isn''t correct to do it - still waiting on Cam to actually link me up to a single example or where a website is sued for comments provided by the public - I know of many cases where a website has been sued, but it''s been thrown out - after all, as anonymous poster, you could go on a site, post something libellous about yourself, and then sue the website, clever huh...?

In many cases fighting court case that was falsely brought against you, can be a pyrrhic victory in terms of the cost of you having to defend yourself, not to mention the hassle. Copyfraud often works on this basis.

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[quote user="CambridgeCanary"][quote user="Camuldonum"]

There''s libel on hundreds of message boards every day and eventually someone is going to get really hammered - a few have been already although not yet football related so far as I know but I am sure it will come.  It is only a matter of time.

Message boards are governed by exactly the same rules as if the words appeared in a "publication."  In the eyes of the law this board is such a "publication."

 

[/quote]

I recollect that there was a libel action by a chairman whose financial honesty was questioned.  Sheffield Wednesday springs to mind.

[/quote]Quite right. It was Sheffield Wednesday. And it was the same kind of allegation thrown at Smith and Jones - that of peculation. The director concerned got a court order to reveal the identities of people hiding behind internet aliases, and sued. At a preliminary hearing the judge rejected some of the comments as frivolous but said there was a serious case to answer on several others.It then transpired that the lead defendant had got cancer, and the director dropped the case on humanitarian grounds. Impossible to be certain what would have happened if the case had gone ahead, but the judge''s comments about how seriously he took some of the allegations might well be a clue.

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I can''t remember the exact details but I''m sure Amir Khan is currently trying to sue Facebook for something that someone wrote about him or a group or something. Would set a precedent.

Also, wasn''t the Internet created by an Englishmen, not America or the Swiss?

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"I can''t remember the exact details but I''m sure Amir Khan is currently trying to sue Facebook for something that someone wrote about him or a group or something. Would set a precedent. "

No, since there are many precedent''s already going the opposite way. It''s won''t happen (or if it did, I''d be well surprised!)

The internet was created by American''s, but the World Wide Web was a Englishman''s idea (Tim Berners Lee).

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[quote user="Chunky Norwich"]I can''t remember the exact details but I''m sure Amir Khan is currently trying to sue Facebook for something that someone wrote about him or a group or something. Would set a precedent.

Also, wasn''t the Internet created by an Englishmen, not America or the Swiss?[/quote]I believe Bryan Gunn invented the internet before a game rather than sorting his bloody team out like he should have been doing.

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Annnnnd another thing - would Google be liable for EVERY piece of libel published on the web, since they re-publish everything in their cache? What about www.archive.org - they must be sued out of existence by now... no? Strange...

Not to say Google doesn''t have 1000''s of docile court cases levelled at them, for the most ridiculous reasons, but they can and do easily fight them off... (not to mention the fact it''s almost impossible to sue Google even for legitimate reasons, let alone stupid reasons, but that''s another story....)

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"Try this link for starters"

Interesting - but the thing is this - we were talking about a site owner/controller being sued for OTHER PEOPLEs posts. That blog was owned and run by a person, and that person posted libellous stuff and got done for it. We''re talking about something different. If archant publish libel, they''ll get sued for it, course they will.

If that blog was run on blogger.com, you notice that blogger.com weren''t sued. Or the hosting company that ran the servers, or the ISP that provided the means to read it etc.

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"Remember Sheffield Wednesday /did/ take on it''s own fans to pursue damages after posts made on a message board..."

And the owner was the website wasn''t one of those posters and was sued, too?

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[quote user="First Jedi"]"I can''t remember the exact details but I''m sure Amir Khan is currently trying to sue Facebook for something that someone wrote about him or a group or something. Would set a precedent. " No, since there are many precedent''s already going the opposite way. It''s won''t happen (or if it did, I''d be well surprised!) The internet was created by American''s, but the World Wide Web was a Englishman''s idea (Tim Berners Lee).[/quote]

There is a distinction between the liability of an ISP for what a blogger says and a message board.   I can see that the first is like the telephone and is a meduim used to transmit a message without any control on content.  To that extent there is no publication as such and no liabilty.   A message board is something constructed to allow people to publish views and both legally and conceptually is no different tio the letters page in the EDP.  There, there would be publishing and so the publisher is liable with the author.   Amir Khan has an interesting case which could determine where the boundaries are drawn.

You have only to look at the law on terrorism, child pornography and downloads to see the extent to which the law can hold internet service liable if policy dictates.

 

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Have a read of my last 2 posts... Amir Khan could successfully sue the person who wrote the libellous things on Facebook, but he won''t succeed in sueing Facebook.

"There is a distinction between the liability of an ISP for what a blogger says and a message board. "

I realise that, but I was being facetious to prove a point...

"Amir Khan has an interesting case which could determine where the boundaries are drawn."

There are 1000''s of cases where this hasn''t happened, where precedents have already been set.

"both legally and conceptually is no different tio the letters page in the EDP."

No it isn''t. Legally and conceptually it''s totally different.

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[quote user="First Jedi"]... Good point - there is a lot of cases of people doing things in fear of things that aren''t necessarily correct. Not to say that it isn''t correct to do it - still waiting on Cam to actually link me up to a single example or where a website is sued for comments provided by the public ...[/quote]

I was a member on a motorcycle forum that was threatened with legal action for libel after a model put up pictures of herself and then got snippy about some of the negative comments that came back.  Turned out that she''d carried out similar action in the past against other message boards, resulting in one car forum closing down and, IIRC, making a token compensatory payment.

Thing was, in her action she referred to a particular libel act that had been superseded by a later act, which contained updated terms and I believe that her case didn''t hold water under the updated act. 

Apologies for not providing a link but the thread was removed by the moderators and her name was added to the site''s auto-replace text.  Just goes to show that some people (in the case of the car forum) aren''t sure of their position so will fold rather than taking the case further, which goes back to First Jedi''s point above.

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[quote user="Camuldonum"]

[quote user="Mr McNallys Alter Ego"]How can it be libellous if you don''t know it it was true?[;)][/quote]

Because you can only publish if you know for certain that what you are alleging is true.  Otherwise the original poster and Archant leave themselves open to legal action.  Archant don''t know it is true and I doubt the original poster does either. 

A good rule just before writing something like that is: "Will I be able to prove it when standing before one of Her Majesty''s red robed Judges?"  A reliable rule, I''ve found. 

[/quote]Agreed, and I would add another rule of thumb for posters that is as much moral as legal. What would your reaction be if you saw that the kind of allegation you were contemplating making on the internet against someone else was actually being made against you?Would you laugh that kind of allegation off, or would you be straight down to London to find a libel lawyer? If the latter, then perhaps best not to press Send.

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[quote user="First Jedi"]Have a read of my last 2 posts... Amir Khan could successfully sue the person who wrote the libellous things on Facebook, but he won''t succeed in sueing Facebook. "There is a distinction between the liability of an ISP for what a blogger says and a message board. " I realise that, but I was being facetious to prove a point... "Amir Khan has an interesting case which could determine where the boundaries are drawn." There are 1000''s of cases where this hasn''t happened, where precedents have already been set. "both legally and conceptually is no different tio the letters page in the EDP." No it isn''t. Legally and conceptually it''s totally different.[/quote]

 

If it''s an area of law which interests you go for Gatley - pricey but it''s the one.

http://www.wildy.com/isbn/9781847034922/gatley-on-libel-and-slander-11th-ed

 

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Lord Robertson and the Sunday Herald''s website messageboard, back in 2003, is ringing some bells...

Think it was the first case of its kind. Cam will know more.

The peer initially sued in 2003 after a message was posted on a readers'' forum website run by the newspaper, inviting comment on speculation that documents relating to the Dunblane murderer, Thomas Hamilton, were to be kept secret for a century.

Lord Robertson raised an action at the court of session in Edinburgh, which was settled after he accepted an offer of £25,000 damages, legal expenses and an apology.

The case in 2004 forced internet publishers to re-double their efforts to ensure internet users posting on their message boards do not libel people.

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[quote user="First Jedi"]Have a read of my last 2 posts... Amir Khan could successfully sue the person who wrote the libellous things on Facebook, but he won''t succeed in sueing Facebook. [/quote]Not convinced by this at all. At the end of the day, Facebook are hosting the content for the site. THEY have published it, so I think they are on dangerous territory. I''m not a lawyer, but surely Facebook must be seen as the publisher in the eyes of the law?[quote user="First Jedi"] There are 1000''s of cases where this hasn''t happened, where precedents have already been set. [/quote]Could you give some linkage, or at least some of these 1000s of cases?

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[quote user="First Jedi"]"I can''t remember the exact details but I''m sure Amir Khan is currently trying to sue Facebook for something that someone wrote about him or a group or something. Would set a precedent. " No, since there are many precedent''s already going the opposite way. It''s won''t happen (or if it did, I''d be well surprised!) The internet was created by American''s, but the World Wide Web was a Englishman''s idea (Tim Berners Lee).[/quote]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/sep/10/amir-khan-frank-warren-facebook

........there might well be a case?

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Camuldonum"]

[quote user="Mr McNallys Alter Ego"]How can it be libellous if you don''t know it it was true?[;)]
[/quote]

Because you can only publish if you know for certain that what you are alleging is true.  Otherwise the original poster and Archant leave themselves open to legal action.  Archant don''t know it is true and I doubt the original poster does either. 

A good rule just before writing something like that is: "Will I be able to prove it when standing before one of Her Majesty''s red robed Judges?"  A reliable rule, I''ve found. 

[/quote]

Agreed, and I would add another rule of thumb for posters that is as much moral as legal. What would your reaction be if you saw that the kind of allegation you were contemplating making on the internet against someone else was actually being made against you?

Would you laugh that kind of allegation off, or would you be straight down to London to find a libel lawyer? If the latter, then perhaps best not to press Send.[/quote]

It would depend on the particular circumstances, but in general if I was in the public eye I would probably accept that it goes with the territory.  I certainly wouldn''t give it oxygen taking legal action against something on a message board, 99% of which is here today and gone . . . today.

 

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[quote user="canary cherub "][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Camuldonum"]

[quote user="Mr McNallys Alter Ego"]How can it be libellous if you don''t know it it was true?[;)]
[/quote]

Because you can only publish if you know for certain that what you are alleging is true.  Otherwise the original poster and Archant leave themselves open to legal action.  Archant don''t know it is true and I doubt the original poster does either. 

A good rule just before writing something like that is: "Will I be able to prove it when standing before one of Her Majesty''s red robed Judges?"  A reliable rule, I''ve found. 

[/quote]

Agreed, and I would add another rule of thumb for posters that is as much moral as legal. What would your reaction be if you saw that the kind of allegation you were contemplating making on the internet against someone else was actually being made against you?

Would you laugh that kind of allegation off, or would you be straight down to London to find a libel lawyer? If the latter, then perhaps best not to press Send.[/quote]

It would depend on the particular circumstances, but in general if I was in the public eye I would probably accept that it goes with the territory.  I certainly wouldn''t give it oxygen taking legal action against something on a message board, 99% of which is here today and gone . . . today.

[/quote]

Or alternatively you could tie up a poster & Archant in a labyrinth of expensive litagation......

How can the rich still be buying our silence with this 13th-century law?

If even football fans can be sued by their club for online remarks, it''s clear libel is too easily used to stifle legitimate dissent

 In the past few days, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has dropped its cases against some of its fans. I am now allowed to write about the worst example of legal bullying I have ever seen.

The club has had serious problems, on and off the pitch, and many of its fans use an internet forum - owlstalk.co.uk - to discuss them. They make the kind of comments you would expect to find on any talk board, and which would normally be forgotten within 15 minutes. Two and half years ago the club launched its first suit. Only now have the people who posted these comments emerged blinking from the labyrinthine nightmare of English law.

As Geoffrey Robertson and Andrew Nicol explain in their excellent book, Media Law, England''s defamation laws date back to a statute created in 1275. The criminal offence of scandalum magnatum was devised to protect "the great men of the realm" from stories which could stir the people against them. Three centuries later, the Star Chamber allowed noblemen to launch civil actions for libel, to provide them with an alternative to duelling.

They made prolific use of this privilege until Fox''s Libel Act of 1792 determined that the claimant (the person bringing the case) had to prove that the words used against him were false, malicious and damaging. This means that libel law 216 years ago was more liberal and more in tune with the principle of free speech than it is today.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Robertson and Nicol show, "the common law was re-fashioned to serve the British class system from the perspective of ... the Victorian club". To protect wealthy people from criticism, the courts reversed Fox''s burden of proof. They created a presumption that any derogatory remark made about a gentleman must be false. This remains the case today. Defamation differs from all other civil or criminal laws in Britain: the burden of proof is on the defendant.

The law remains the privilege of gentlemen, by which I mean people who are able to afford costs that often exceed £1m on each side. Cases tend to be resolved by sheer financial might, as the plaintiffs bankrupt the defendants, or force them to give in before their money runs out. This ensures that the law retains its 13th-century function. It guarantees that most attempts to hold the wealthy to account founder before they are launched, as people bite their tongues for fear of losing their homes.

Since 1879, corporations have also been able to sue for libel. The inequality of arms this causes is compounded by the fact that there is no legal aid for defamation cases. Lawyers are now allowed to fight these suits on a no-win, no-fee basis, but this freedom is double-edged: if a defendant loses, he could end up paying double the claimant''s legal costs.

This is the context in which Sheffield Wednesday went to court to demand the names and email addresses of 14 people who had posted comments on owlstalk. Here are some of the comments over which the club complained. "What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we''ve become." "Another day, another blunder. I doubt even Leeds were in such a mess this time last summer, and look what happened to them." "I am waiting with bated breath to hear who the Chuckle Brothers have signed after their trip to watch players abroad. With the amount of money they have to spend and the wages they can offer the best we can hope for is that little known Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel."

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday''s lawyers to be "false and seriously defamatory messages" which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club. (They should try posting an article on the Guardian''s Comment is Free site.) The lawyers threatened "proceedings to include claims for injunctions, damages, interest and legal costs (which could be substantial)". The judge threw most of the application out, but instructed the forum''s host to reveal the email addresses of four of the posters, whose remarks seem to me to be almost as trivial as those he dismissed. This took place a year ago, and the long shadow of the law hung over the posters until the club''s lawyers dropped the case last week.

Another case dates back to February 2006, when the club sent a warning letter to a fan called Nigel Short. When he received the letter he offered to apologise and to change his comments, but the club rejected this. He was able to fight it only because he found a lawyer - Mark Lewis of George Davies Solicitors in Manchester - who was incensed by this case and was prepared to represent him. "I''ve had two and a half years of worrying I was going to lose my house," Short tells me. "It''s been hell. If Mark hadn''t done this no win, no fee, I would have been bankrupt by now."

In November 2007, Short was diagnosed with throat cancer. The case continued. But on Wednesday September 3 he announced that his treatment had been successful. On Friday September 5, the club dropped the case and agreed to pay his costs. It issued a press release which suggested it had done so because of "Mr Short''s medical condition". I asked the club whether it had abandoned the case because it knew that Short would now live to fight the action. It has refused to answer my questions.

The point of this story is not that the directors of Sheffield Wednesday have behaved like a bunch of petulant bullies. It''s that the law equips them to do so. Most people see this as an issue only for journalists. But the internet ensures that the law of defamation now threatens anyone who stands up for what he believes to be right.

This autumn the English branch of PEN, which defends the freedom to write, will launch a campaign against our libel law. But where are the rest of you? Where are the petitions, the public protests, the lobbies of parliament? Why is this 13th-century law still permitted to stifle legitimate dissent? Wake up, Britain: your freedoms are disappearing into the pockets of barristers and billionaires.

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Okay, this is getting a little bit tiredsome, so I''ll end on this;

The have been isolated cases where website owners have been successfully sued for content posted by other people - judges do get things wrong from time to time, but it''s incomparable to to bazillions of cases where this tactic hasn''t worked. Facebook, Google, face this all the time, and they win. Not that anyone here has actually provide one of these examples, despite how many times I''ve asked, and I''ve had replies that haven''t... (actually Pete sort of did, I wrote that before he did and I''m just checking newer posts as I write, and I''ll come on to that.)

Here is a good post on the subject here; http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071127/224002.shtml and http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060908/163844.shtml - please read these - I''d url them up but for the fact that it doesn''t work with my browser. Obviously this is US law, and UK is more draconian in these cases, but you get the idea. As one person said; "Should businesses be liable for the grafitti on their walls?" No, and they aren''t.

To suggest that Amir Khan is the first person to sue Facebook or a publisher on the content of other people posts is the first of it''s kind and will set any precedent, is utterly ridiculous. It happens all the time, and 99 time out of 100 it doesn''t work.

Google, Facebook, Blogger.com, Wordpress, The Internet Archive, The wayback machine etc etc. would long since been sued out of existence. People think they are easy targets since they have lots of money - more money than the actual poster since they are usually members of the public, and therefore the chance of actually getting money is increased in the minds of those that are sueing, but just because those people are silly enough to try. Google re-publishes most of the web and everything libellous on the web, and they''ve never been sued for libel in their cache, as far as I know.

As I''ve said before, I understand why Archant do it - the costs of defending false cases are high. If the site was moderated as it was before, and Archant specifically controlled the publications of those posts, I could see a case where they would be liable, much in the case of letters in a newspaper. But un-moderated comments on a messageboard does not make the messageboard owner liable, only the person who made those comments are. It''s different to print media where the owner of paper controls everything published. It''s very different. And it''s different within the law, if only for the many precedents set, the many times this has not been successful.

In Pete''s post above he says "which was settled after he accepted an offer of £25,000 damages, legal expenses and an apology." - which suggests that the case was settled outside of a court ruling (if only for the fact it''s only £25k, not millions like successful libel cases) and therefore doesn''t prove anything and supports the point above that it''s sometimes quicker easier and less expensive to capitulate rather than fight and win a pyrrhic victory. Even if that isn''t the case, like I said, Judges *do* get things wrong, and this might be the case here. I''m not denying it doesn''t happen - especially in the UK where we don''t have an explicit law like Section 230 and our libel laws are stricter - which is good cause for Archant to aggressively take down libellous comments.

"........there might well be a case?"

Sorry - the guardian is web-filtered at work... would''ve been interesting to read...

(Good god - how long a post? Sorry all! Bored at work on a Friday...)

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Bigfish - exactly my point - (it''s not 100% clear from that article) but the posters of the comments were sued, not the website who didn''t make the comments.

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[quote user="canary cherub "][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Camuldonum"]

[quote user="Mr McNallys Alter Ego"]How can it be libellous if you don''t know it it was true?[;)][/quote]

Because you can only publish if you know for certain that what you are alleging is true.  Otherwise the original poster and Archant leave themselves open to legal action.  Archant don''t know it is true and I doubt the original poster does either. 

A good rule just before writing something like that is: "Will I be able to prove it when standing before one of Her Majesty''s red robed Judges?"  A reliable rule, I''ve found. 

[/quote]Agreed, and I would add another rule of thumb for posters that is as much moral as legal. What would your reaction be if you saw that the kind of allegation you were contemplating making on the internet against someone else was actually being made against you?Would you laugh that kind of allegation off, or would you be straight down to London to find a libel lawyer? If the latter, then perhaps best not to press Send.[/quote]

It would depend on the particular circumstances, but in general if I was in the public eye I would probably accept that it goes with the territory.  I certainly wouldn''t give it oxygen taking legal action against something on a message board, 99% of which is here today and gone . . . today.

 

[/quote]Canary Cherub, I understand the point you are making, as far as general criticism goes, but even if you were in the public eye would you just laugh off allegations of criminal behaviour? Because that is sometimes what gets posted here, and elsewhere.I can think of a clear example on this board recently which - for obvious reasons - I will not repeat, and there have been many others in the past. Sooner or later, as Cam said earlier, someone is going to get hammered precisely because someone in the public eye decides it doesn''t just go with the territory.

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[quote user=First Jedi]In Pete''s post above he says "which was settled after he accepted an offer of £25,000 damages, legal expenses and an apology." - which suggests that the case was settled outside of a court ruling (if only for the fact it''s only £25k, not millions like successful libel cases) and therefore doesn''t prove anything and supports the point above that it''s sometimes quicker easier and less expensive to capitulate rather than fight and win a pyrrhic victory.  quote]First Jedi, in libel it''s not the damages that kill you, it''s the costs. The defendant had to pay his costs AND the winner''s costs. Ouch.

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"First Jedi, in libel it''s not the damages that kill you, it''s the costs. The defendant had to pay his costs AND the winner''s costs. Ouch. "

Yeah, but I was thinking they did that early, so the costs where low (for both parties), rather than take ages, win the case and have massive costs of your own as they''ve built up...

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