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UK's Demon Settles Usenet Libel Case
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Mar 30, 2000 07:43 AM
from the i'm-not-a-witch-i'm-/not/-a-witch! dept.
from the i'm-not-a-witch-i'm-/not/-a-witch! dept.
Uri writes "A BBC article has just reported that Laurence Godfrey, a physicist, has won around $400,000 from Demon Internet, a leading UK ISP, over defamatory posting about him which appeared on usenet. Note that under English Law, ISPs are held responsible for defamatory material if they do not take reasonable care to ensure such material is not published, and if they do not remove such material when alerted to it. It was the latter that Demon refused to do, and which prompted the legal action. The case now threatens to put an huge strain on all English ISPs as they could be forced to monitor all material trafficking through their systems. Go England! "
An interesting snippet from the article: "Although such discussion forums are often full of robust, forthright and even offensive opinions posted by individuals, the case hinged on whether Demon could be treated as publisher of the material." I wonder how well British universities would like to be treated as publishers, and therefore Net-content nannies ...
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UK's Demon Settles Usenet Libel Case
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Re:Common Carrier status (Score:3)
Thus the situation where , say, WHSmiths (large chain of newsagents) regularly used to refuse to carry Private Eye (satirical magazine) when their covers featured people such as Robert Maxwell who were known to be fond of the courts.
I seem to have posted five times on one story ... soprry, everyone, it must have been something I ate ;)
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Common Carrier status (Score:3)
It seems at first glance that they certainly should. But at what point does that end? We can all agree that to employ people to read and make a value judgment on every piece of information sent over a network would be ridiculous. Similarly, checking a bulletin board the size of (say) Slashdot would also be a mammoth undertaking.
What about the situation of when requested to remove personal attacks against a person though, from a news server or bulletin board hosted on that particular ISP's servers?
Where to draw the line becomes a sticky problem.
The situation in the UK is further complicated by the fact that according to existing laws suurrounding censorship and libel, the "publisher" of traditional paper material can be any of; the publisher, the writer, distributors and/or stockists! This leads to a horrible situation, where a shop is responsible for the content of books that it stocks - which has lead to several raids in the UK against comic shops stocking "adult" comics.
I get the impression that this latest news does still not set a precedent saying that UK ISP's should be responsible for all the content on their servers, but rather that if asked to remove material that could prove libellous in court, they should probably try and comply. Not the best ruling, I'll agree, but not a total disaster either.
Re:USENET is dying anyway (Score:3)
On alt.comp.perifs.cdr I have troubleshot my CDR VERY WELL.
The Mozilla newsgroups (news.mozilla.org -- netscape.public.mozilla.*) have let me really follow and contribute to the next Netscape browser.
The "ER" newsgroup is cool when I miss an episode...people post summaries and such.
To say nothing of the ever-popular porn newsgroups, where one can find one's own particular "thing" and find lots of people who are also into that thing--including pictures, videos, reviews, original works, etc.
Usenet is FAR from dead. I find it invaluable. And, unlike the web, it has yet to be "discovered"--no ecommerce, no suburban values, no emphasis on looking good, not easy to set up (well, pretty damn easy, but not for total "dummies").
The open-forum nature of the system is what makes it work. The distributed nature is what makes people think hosts should be held accountable. I, for one, would shed a tear at its passing.
Not quite sure what to think (Score:3)
Warning: this posting will reach no conclusion. Read it at your own risk. :-)
My first reaction to this was ``this is bullshit'', quite frankly. I have worked at ISPs for a couple years now, and have been a user of Usenet for almost seven years (although I've waned somewhat recently). My first reaction is that it's patently ridiculous to sue Demon over this. They should be under no obligation to remove any material. Usenet should always be taken with a grain of salt, anyway; and if Dr. Godfrey is so hot about forgeries, he should sign all his messages with PGP.
But then again, I think that someone must take some sort of action. Let's face it, digital signature technology is never going to take hold (considering even IPv6 is stalemated like crazy over here in the US), and unless we wipe the current Internet technology from the face of Earth and start anew, we'll never have assurances that forgeries are in the very least rare. Regrettably, the herd is full of people who don't have a clue that messages even can be forged, and they'll believe anything they see coming up on their screen. I doubt we could educate them about forgeries considering the fact that I see a new mass-forward-to-get-free-stuff spam every other week.
Something else I'm worrying about, which is close to OT, is that even if we did deploy mandatory digital signatures for everyone, the majority of the Internet herd would never be able to comprehend it and insecure PCs would be compromising keys left and right -- so it would be, in a word, ineffectual.
Where does this all leave us? I'm not really sure. It concerns me to see precedent like this, especially considering the hordes of bloodthirsty lawyers over here in the US grinning with glee at the idea of such a case.
The Internet has indeed blessed us with a glimpse of what free speech truly is. Unfortunately, as our audience grows wider, it seems to get less free.
In an unrelated story today..... (Score:3)
Seriously folks, how can an ISP be responsible for what it's users do? How can a fast-food place be respobible for somebody spilling coffee on themselves? How can tobacco companies be responsible for somebody smoking 20+ years? What we need today is personal responsibility.
Until people stop crying to other people (esp. the government) how can we have a free socity? With freedom comes responsibility. It seems we want one without the other, but, that's impossible.
And, more spcifically on this ruling, woln't this just incourage more people to post "illegal" (don't get me started...) things? If the ISP get punished and not the person, why not?
Grades, Social Life, Sleep....Pick Two.
BIll doubles his money (Score:3)
I can see MSFT making a shitload of cash off this... all they have to do is scan slashdot over the past 2 years for "Microsoft" and they have like 321412341 automatic cases :) (Not to mention searching on Google for +"Bill Gates" +satan)
Re:Free Speech must just be an American Thing (Score:3)
Wow ... I like the fact that I can call someone a wanker at any point in time I feel like it. I guess maybe I should take that for granted. Though we all know England really can't do much of anything right. I mean they even mess up the english language. Let's face it. English people like tea and whining. And I guess whining gets you a half a million dollars because someone typed something that hurt your feelings.
Wow, you're not too much of a bigot are you? I mean this bloke is already known on USENET as being very quick with the threat of legal action, and yet you seem to think that he obviously represents all of English people. And as for winning money for this, the US is by far the worse for frivolous lawsuits. I mean lets face it, a country with 50% of the world's lawyers can't really talk about people suing for quick money.
But flaming someone ... come on ... you've obviously never driven in a big city in America if you really think something someone types will upset you. I mean you get a bit to close to someone and BOOM you just became lower than dirt. Also there's that whole fact that americans like to put down and flame peole. It's the american way.
Oh, so having a go at someone is obviously an American invention? Have you been watching Mary Poppins too much and started believing it is a genuine depiction of the UK? From the sounds of it you've never been to England and don't have much of a clue about how people *actually* live. And you sound proud about a country where people think it's a high point to go on TV and insult other people. Very clever.
It wasn't even posted by a Demon user (Score:3)
Laurence Godfrey, has filed 10 lawsuits in a personal crusade to try to force the Internet to submit to national libel laws. In this suit, he objected to a forged posting on the newsgroup soc.culture.thai that he claimed was libelous; the poster has no relationship whatsoever with Demon Internet, the defendant.
The decision may point to a broader trend across Europe. A draft European Commission directive on electronic commerce suggests that ISPs should be liable for similar kinds of content if they are aware of its presence.
Here is Demon Internet's spin on the story.
http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politic
http://www.dispatches.demon.net/cgi-bin/framer.
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:4)
British libel law is much worse than US (Score:4)
It's been a mainstay of villains and scoundrels for many years. Recently it's not all been going the way of the bad guys: Jonathan Aitken and Neil Hamilton were recent prominent losers in libel cases and Aitken deservedly went to prison for perjury after suing a paper for publishing the truth.
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Re:go england? (Score:4)
In that case, I'd guess you don't know very much about Usenet.
Settling with this guy (who has sued others before, I believe), not only panders to net.kookery, but fails to recognize the decentralized nature of Usenet.
To order an ISP to remove a Usenet post is silly; yes, they can issue a cancel, but a lot of good that does for an article that has already propagated. Many servers do not honor cancels, for a number of reasons, so the article, while it may not be available on the local server, will still exist on servers throughout the world (He did manage to get DejaNews to pull it, though...another scary thing).
Usenet is really a record of events; what this guy has done is to try to alter history by scribbling in his own newspaper.
New XFMail home page [slappy.org]
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
Demon got bad advice: they were merely postpoint (Score:4)
Somebody posted an article allegedly libelling Laurence Godfrey, and regardless of through which ISP and in which country it was posted, IT WAS INJECTED STRAIGHT INTO USENET by the poster, so only the poster can in any way be responsible. Demon and every other ISP merely reflect the state of the global flood-fill, while providing the means by which posters can themselves inject their posts into the global system. Furthermore, any optimizations related to local injection prior to distribution are just that, optimizations: they don't change the model.
Demon was merely a postpoint, nothing else. They did not hold the articles in question except as a reflection of the global Usenet, so it was pointless of Godfrey to ask Demon to remove them from their own servers alone because the articles were on Usenet, not on Demon servers per se. And to have the articles cancelled across Usenet does not require any particular ISP's involvement (you can use any ISP), so Demon were not in any way specially involved even if the items were originally injected via Demon.
The whole premise of the action and of the defense was wrong, and Demon should have been advised accordingly.
Why USENET should not be permitted to die (Score:4)
So, ironically, USENET as an archive of information is much more useful than the web IMHO, despite the fact that as a forum it is being murdered by the spammers and trollers.
Unfortunately, if USENT truly does die as you and others predict, some ugly consiquences will emerge:
It is in all of our interests to keep USENET alive. If the signal to noise ratio has grown so bad that it is difficult to use, and moderation is unacceptable, perhaps some kind of slashdot-style rating of posts, or other tweak is necessary. I believe it would be a mistake to simply dismiss what is still, even today, a valuable resource and simply allow it to die.
Unless, of course, none of us want to be able to quickly look up answers to our questions anymore on deja.com, or to post an opinion safely and anonymously that might otherwise be supressed (and no, I don't thing slashdots anonymouty is secure enough to use for anything other than the most casual purposes).
Instead of throwing our hands up and shrugging, we should be looking for solutions to the signal to noise problem which preseves USENETs overall strengths of decentralized authority, resistence to censorship, and anonymouty.
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:4)
Every word you have posted is a lie. You are a Microsoft user. You are a clueless newbie who has have never even written a device driver. I recieve six death threats off you every half hour. Furthermore, you are the originator of those emails which say Bill Gates will buy a trip to Disneyland for every recipient.
On an unrelated note, I use FreeUK [freeuk.net]. They are an excellent free ISP who give free telephone and email support. They will go out of their way to support non-standard setups, like Linux, and I would heartily reccommend them to anyone.
Re:US-style libel going to Europe? (Score:4)
1. dedicate enough skilled staff to review each and every such demand, and judge whether it is justified (keeping in mind that a wrong decision could be very costly), or
2. immediately cave in and remove any posting on demand (this will also require staff effort, but requires less skill). This would, of course, reduce the level of discourse to that of a corporate press release.
What with this and Labour's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill [stand.org.uk] (putting encryption users at risk of prosecution if they lose their keys), Britain looks to be dropping out of the Internet race. Sad, really.
England (Score:4)
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Dang, Godfrey? (Score:5)
He was even a net-legend [cs.ruu.nl].
I guess a legend with a lawyer can set an unfortunate precedent...
Regards,
Ben
Re:go england? (Score:5)
So should an ISP delete anything that anyone tells them is defamatory ? Or the police ? the Government ? a customer ? Anyone who looks like they can afford to sue ?
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Re:England (Score:5)
Re:go england? (Score:5)
That may or may not be true.
The decentralized nature if Usenet causes obvious problems with certain legal jurisdictions. But the law always seems to be determined to "have a go" - even when it is pointless. It is not impossible to imagine how someone might try to take advantage of this.
>To order an ISP to remove a Usenet post is silly; yes, they can issue a cancel,
Demon refused to even try. When the dubious posts were reported they could have chosen to look remove them from their own servers and possibly issue cancels. Had they done so they would then have been able to make a strong case that they had done everything possible - and that would probably have got them off the hook, even if there attempts had only had very limited success.
There are a couple of important facts which I think people should be aware of - along with some important points about UK law and practice.
1) The case was settled before it went to court.
2) Up until that point Demon had a defence - the details of which made interesting reading and are relevant. Unfortunately the Demon press release on this seems to have been withdrawn. Hmmm. Anyway - working from memory, the defence was based on drawing attention to some of the other messages Godfrey has posted on Usenet, some of the other legal cases he had been involved with. I think they were suggesting that when looked at in context then people might be able to draw some very different conclusions about what was really going on.
3) Under English law there is a general prinicple that the loosing side of a legal action plays the costs of everyone involved. Normally these costs are "taxed". This is nothing to do with raising money for the government. "Taxing" is a way of the court ruling on what charges are fair. However Libel cases are different - the costs are not "taxed" and the lawyers on both sides can charge pretty much what they want and the losing side is stuck with paying the (huge) bill.
4) Legal costs in England are very high generally - and the most expensive area is libel law.
5) It is common practice for one side to make an offer prior to a hearing starting. If that offer is accepted then the party that made it pays whatever they offered - usually plus all the legal bills so far.
6) If the offer is refused and the court finally awards an amount which is equal too, or less than the amount offered, then the party which refused the offer is normally made to pay the costs from that point onwards.
7) In this case the settlement offered was fifteen thousand pounds + costs. This could be regarded as quite a low figure for libels in the UK. Costs are about two hundred thousand pounds.
8) Had the case gone to trial total costs could easily have reached a million pounds and beyond.
OK. Based on the above - here is one scenario which fits the known facts quite well :
Demon thought they had a good defence, but also knew it was a "high-risk" defence. One likely outcome of fielding that defence could have been that the court would still have found against Demon - but only made a very modest award of damages. Had that happened Demon would still have been lumbered with paying huge costs.
So Demon took a pragmatic view that they would make a modest offer to protect themselves from such an outcome.
When Godfrey saw the offer he was then faced with a decision. If he refused the offer there was a chance that the amount he finally won in court would have been less than Demon's offer - and he would been left to page the huge litigation costs.
Given the risks involved he might have decided that his best interests lay in accepting the offer.
It was basically a gamble for both sides.
In making the offer Demon were paying out a quarter of a million pounds to reduce the odds of them being stung for well over a million.
In accepting the offer Godfrey was taking only fifteen thousand pounds and avoiding having an having to pay very substantial legal costs even if he only won modest damages.
Re:Aaargh (Score:5)
knew they were unlikely to win on a matter of principle, trying to
protect their users freedom of speech. How many other ISPs do you
think would do the same?
And they have been very open about what they are doing and why. If
I was in the UK, I would switch to Demon: I trust people who are
open. All the other UK based ISPs will be following just the same
conservative policy, except they won't be telling you what they are
doing and why.
US-style libel going to Europe? (Score:5)
Consider the following, now that the EU is moving toward integrated laws and "e-commerce" regulations:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid this will push the EU to enact Union-wide laws. Why is this a bad news? Because most Europeans are not informed enough (yet) about the potential and pitfalls of Internet free speech. And, because of the weight of the EU, what it decides may well affect other countries... Such as the US. Uh Oh.
Not to mention that most Euro-MPs are complete idiots (IMHO).
Not Good. Or, as a famous Englishman would have put it: "Double-Plus UnGood". We are getting there -- we are just behind schedule...
On Demon's site (Score:5)
Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there. (Score:5)
kwsNI