UK's Demon Settles Usenet Libel Case 204
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 ...
More Slashdot FUD (Score:1)
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 traficking through their systems.
It's much more likely that ISPs could be forced to examine material that is claimed to be defamatory and remove it if they judge it to be defamatory. That's a looooooooooong way from actively patrolling their customer's websites searching for defamatory material.
Slashdot sucks. Have a bagel.
Re:go england? (Score:1)
Something similar is happening in another groundbreaking UK Internet case due to be heard soon at Northampton Crown Court.
Regina vs Buckley is a criminal prosecution in which a regular UK contributor to newsgroups, Chris Buckley, is being prosecuted under the Telecommunications Act 1984.
Sending posts to Usenet from a dialup account or leased line considered to be part of the Public Telecommunications Network (which varies from ISP to ISP; some are, some aren't) including the word "f*ck" is, believe it or not, a criminal offence in the UK.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991116-000007.html
Re:go england? (Score:1)
* Refuses to move the post, and then risks prosecution; or
* Removes the post, and actively censors its newsgroups.
As soon as you do the former, you are taking a huge risk - you basically require someone to make a legal judgement call, on what is an EXTREMELY subjective area, and if they get it wrong (or not even wrong, just different from the court it then goes to), you pay masses of compensation.
As soon as you do the latter, you have exercised editorial control over the group, and lose any right to argue that you are merely a carrier. This makes you liable to claims that anything ELSE on the server must have been approved as suitable (the flipside of of not exercising editorial control - if you choose to, youre then liable for everything, there is no halfway house).
Its plainly ridiculous. What should actually happen is that the claimant must prove its libellous, and once this has been established by a court, ISPs should THEN have a duty to remove the item. Expecting ISP's to second guess courts is ludicrous.
What will thus happen is that ISPs will just pull any article they get 'reported' to them, and its less risky than making a subjective call. So...if you dont like a thread, just ring your ISP and give them the msgid's and they'll almost certainly remove the lot. Its ridiculous, but this is the way it'll go. This ruling was appalling.
Demon 'brought this upon themselves' by trying to resist the nanny-state view that 'everything must be edited to ensure its safe'. They took the view that the POSTER is committing libel, the ISP is no different from the Postal Service, and cannot be held to count for the content of mails. Do you sue the postal service for delivering you a mail that contains libel? No. If you tell them you suspect such a mail is going to be delivered should they be considered of committing libel if they deliver it? Of course not.
And thats not even going into the specifics of the 'Demon actually published the documents by holding them on their servers, and this is their liability' rubbish. Just consider what this means for email if it gets enforced all over....
AC (ex Demon)
Re:England (Score:1)
Yes we can. Repeat after me.
"British by birth, English by the grace of God."
Heh.
Re:Poor Demon (Score:1)
The BBC article is quite misleading in a few respects. Firstly, the article wasn't posted via Demon - Demon weren't even LG's ISP. Demon were also not the largest news provider - JANET (the academic system) was. Good background of some of the legalities can be found here [cyber-rights.org]
Another interesting point was that by the time LGs lawyer contacted Demon, the post had been expired anyway.
LG also has a history of libel actions. From the link above
This matter was discussed extensively in the Demon news groups (demon.service in particular). During this serveral incidents occured
1. LG was discovered to have systematically removed every post that he had ever made from deja.com
2. Deja had a copy of the post that was libellous, although this was later removed.
3. People posted a link to the post, and Demon and the posters were subsequently threatened with libel suits.
4. Demon banned the posters of the "libellous" URL from posting via its servers without a written undertaking that they would no repeat the libel. This was so badly worded that a few people, some of the lawyers, refused to sign.
What is left after all this is basically a kooks charter - anybody complains about a posting and it is history. The nature of net news is that it is expensive to operate given the current volume, a minority interest (I'd reckon a majority of net users have no idea what it is now), and with this result means that ISP will have little option but to remove allegedly libellous postings - the risk reward equation is too unbalanced to permit any other option.
A very depressing day. Unfortunately, with the current law in the UK it was inevitable. The only possible defence in UK law (innocent dissemination) dies as soon as you are notified about it.
Bearing in mind the subject matter, I think that I'll post this anonymously: I don't believe I've said anything libellous, but I could still be threatened never-the-less.
Summary of Godfrey Case (Score:1)
Re:go england? (Score:1)
Re:England (Score:1)
While we are making corrections this article at the BBC [bbc.co.uk]points out that he was only awarded 15,000 pounds, however Demon have to cover his legal costs which could reach 200,000 pounds. Demon will not have to pay this until they have appealed, etc, etc. You have to questions someones motivation who will spend 200,000 pounds because someone said something nasty about him.
15,000 pounds = 25,000 dollars
Re:England (Score:1)
There is an interesting point in here though... Demon used to be an English company but was bought a while back by Scottish Power for their Scottish Telecom subsidiary which is now known as "Thus(tm)" (Nearly as stupid as Inprise). Of course Demon didn't move their NOCs up to Scotland (too damn expensive for little gain) but in a case like this would the defamation claim be held under English Law (because the servers & claimant were in England) or under Scottish Law because the company was Scottish?
Or maybe it's all irrelevant because it happened before the buy out?
Re:go england? (Score:1)
So if I say your posting has defamatory content and tell Cmdr Taco to remove it and he refuses, can I get $400K from him? Sweet! It was the plaintiff, not a judge, who requested the removal.
Re:go england? (Score:1)
Re:Dang, Godfrey? (Score:1)
almost OT....but......... (Score:1)
Not that it makes a world of diff'...
--
"Five pounds to get into my own bedroom? What have you done? Turn it into a roller-disco?"
News at 11! (Score:1)
Hey, this sounds like Europe all over again. :) (Score:1)
I think there must be some sort of dangerous mind altering fumes pervading the houses of parliament.
Re:go england? (Score:1)
Despite that fact, well-established custom and netiquette dictates that experienced online users don't take these kinds of comments on USENET seriously. This is obviously quite different from the "old" world of newspapers, magazine, and T.V. media, where publishers take responsibility for what the turn out. I'd like to see that responsibility extended to the online world and have this guy go after the person who posted the offending material (if he can track him down - not very likely!)
This is another ridiculous law that doesn't take into account the impossibility of enforcement.
The plaintiff needs to get a set of leather britches in my opinion, and not let the flames or insults get to him, no matter how personally offensive they might be. It's USENET for crying out loud.
Re:Public is public (Score:1)
Do you really want to force ISPs to become judge and jury when they get a complaint? I see nothing good coming out of such a situation.
Re:whistles twice, knocks self on head (Score:1)
Cricket has rules? Why spoil it with rules?
Re:Aaargh (Score:1)
The case was raised because of a posting to soc.culture.thai - given SE Asia's reputation for certain classes of tourists, I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out the possible contents of the posting.
It wasn't a flame, it was a lie. There's a million miles between the two.
Just because it's Usenet, that doesn't mean you should be able to forge a posting, making out that someone else is admitting to something that is not true.
Freedom of speech is not freedom to malign and impugn.
Sure the new RIP is heinous and the work done by the peeps at Stand [stang.org.uk] is worthwhile, but don't condone the slanderer.
The net should be about making information available to all. It should also be about, where possible, making sure that that information is timely, relevant and accurate.
I don't think that ISPs should have the onus placed on them to check what's on their web-servers, news-spools or disk-space assigned to their users. They should, though, be able to take reasonable steps once potential problems have been pointed out. Demon didn't even try, that's where they went wrong. They didn't even look into the problem and say "we don't have an issue with this", they just ignored it.
If you ignore things, they don't always go away.
Re:USENET is dying anyway (Score:1)
You mean besides what the guy with the Connie Chung fetish is making us wade through?
Re:US-style libel going to Europe? (Score:1)
One question: could the ISP also get sued the other way around, like if I post a perfectly legal message, the ISP removes in on request of someone else, and Im not happy with that?
Re:Crazy? (Score:1)
Could someone clarify? (Score:1)
I think the point was... (Score:1)
By going and finding the article, they could not claim that they knew nothing about it and that they could not therefore be held accountable for it.
They would have been better off to deny all knowledge of it, and refuse to look for it. Demon would then have been in a much stronger position.
Now everybody knows (Score:1)
This whole thing started out because a few people thought Dr. Laurence Godfrey was a jerk.
Now, millions of people know Dr. Laurence Godfrey is a jerk.
Somehow I doubt that was his intent.
Alan
Re:US-style libel going to Europe? (Score:1)
This case does not indicate that ISP's need to begin monitoring content on their web pages. This case does not indicate that anyone can be sued for calling someone an idiot on your web page. What it indicates is that an ISP can be held accountable for illegal material hosted by their web servers (e.g. defamatory slander, which would be illegal in any printed form) IF they are aware of it (and if they have been notified of the content in question, that counts as awareness). If they hadn't been informed it was there, or they shut it down immediately when notified, the ISP would have been in the clear.
So flame away, ye blockheads, and next time think for yourselves a little.
Re:Free Speech must just be an American Thing (Score:1)
Re:USENET is dying anyway (Score:1)
that are crossposted to more than one newsgroup, irrespective of content. I haven't hacked a
file in several years, but at one time one could filter out nearly all of the noise in any
number of clever ways. Making this feature available in a user-friendly (read: GUI I suppsoe)
fashion for an average USENET app shouldn't be all that difficult.
And, in fact, is available in all good Windows GUI newsreaders,and likely most Unix ones as well. I use Agent [forteinc.com] under Wine at home, and have a good set of filters which take care of most spam, and even most lame spam follow-ups. It's even possible to noticeably reduce the spam in the pr0n groups with a few intelligent filters.
Correction: (Score:1)
Thus, the new burden is not to monitor Usenet, but to remove defamatory material hosted locally.
Not so crazy if you want to make a quick buck. (Score:1)
</cynicysm>
Re:England (Score:1)
(Amazing to see a Slashdot slave posting!)
Re:England (Score:1)
Re:Channel Islands (Score:1)
The Duchy of Lancaster is normally touted around with the same quasi-country myths as Berwick.
As for The CI, IOM, ... these are essentially British territories/dominions are have legal systems based on English Law - there 'supreme court' is the House of Lords in London.
Re:Channel Islands (Score:1)
As an interesting aside, 'Berwick upon Tweed' should probably be known as 'Berwick in Tweed' if you treat Multi Map [multimap.com] as gospel!
Let me get this straight: (Score:1)
I guess the only thing Brits can get right is music.
Re:go england? (Score:2)
Even in the good 'ol US of A, you can get in trouble for making defanatory statements -- it's known as the slander and libel laws.
Personally, I don't see how this is any different than a TV station which refuses to pull defamatory advertising. Just because it's the internet does not mean that you somehow have a license to broadcast defamatory materials. I mean, come on! It's not like there are no limits on free speach offline, either -- ask you local kiddie porn purveyor.
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Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:2)
-1 Libel
:-)
the Imminent death of the Net happened (Score:2)
A small handful of groups survived, primarily by aggressively complaining over each and every abusive posting.
Unfortunately, some ISP's (such as Demon) do not see advertising ebay auctions as actionable abuse, and it may become necessary for the surviving groups to go to a script-based moderation--allow known users to post, and hold other posts until viewed.
hawk
Re:go england? (Score:2)
That's a very important point as regards UK law etc. As UK citizens we enjoy very few 'rights' as enjoyed by such places at the USA who have a specific constitution guaranteeing them such things. UK law is based almost entirely on precedent and any rights we have are there because centuries of precedent have allowed them to exist.
This means we can do anything until someone in law decides we can't (equally something that's deemed unlawful can become a 'right' if it's defeated in a court)
Strangely, our lack of rights does tend to a more open society than in the US where the strict lists of rights gives people a detailed list of what you can and can't do. Here we have to wait for something to be decided in court and it's often easier to just let things lie.........
Hohum
Troc
Sue Godfrey for destruction of Internet freedom (Score:2)
But the UK courts have no interest in freedom of speech, being basically a playground for the power politics of government, corporates and pressure groups. Too bad.
Re:Demon got bad advice: they were merely postpoin (Score:2)
The end of free ISP's? (Score:2)
Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.
Further background info on the case (Score:2)
This guy is well known for, er, um, well Demon are my ISP too, so let's just say he's well known in UK internet circles ;)
\a
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Re:Not so crazy if you want to make a quick buck. (Score:2)
"OK, to start with, we all understand basic IP, right ?" [blank looks all round] "You know, TCP, UDP, ports, dotted quads ... uh .... "
\a
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Re:Libel laws and publishing (Score:2)
\a
--
Re:USENET is dying anyway (Score:2)
As I mentioned in another post, we should be seeking technical solutions to these problems. This is an excellent example.
It shouldn't be too hard to design or configure a news reader to automagically filter articles that are crossposted to more than one newsgroup, irrespective of content. I haven't hacked a
Re:England, MAYBE Wales, PROB. NOT Scotland (Score:2)
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:2)
-£400,000 Libel
Re:England (Score:2)
Normally i'm all for pointing out the use of 'UK' over 'England' to our American cousins, however this looks like a valid case for using 'England'...
It's not so bad (Score:2)
Would it work? Hell no.. Most servers ignore that now as it's far to easy to fake.
Thats why they never bothered.
It IS dumb on one side to think an ISP can do anything about a message once it is out.
But legally speaking they need to try...
Say like... THE DVDCCS guys saying "We have to say this for legal reasons... please erase our code becouse the DVDCCA dosn't want you to have it... thank you"
But it's not that they legally must monitor everything just that they legaly must push the big red button connected to nothing.
It's silly... but it's nothing major.. just legally required to try..
A simple recipe to get rich! (Score:2)
ms
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:2)
Re:USENET is dying anyway (Score:2)
But for many other topics, newsgroups (even outside comp.*) are still a great source of information and the S/N ratio is still good. Photography groups, moderated newsgroups (like comp.risks, which every
The web is great if something you want to know has already been expounded upon elsewhere. But when you have some new question that is not easily answered through a search engine, newsgroups are a good place to ask the universe at large.
Re:Aaargh (Score:2)
Yup, I've since read up on and remembered a bit more about the case, and the idea of forging a posting... well amongst other things, *sign the post*!. As well as complain to the ISP for breach of usenettiquette if it persists.
"Freedom of speech is not freedom to malign and impugn."
Actually I think that's wrong. Freedom of speech is to say whatever you like - the *responsibility* for it is a separate idea that I wouldn't deny. (This is one of the reasons I don't flame as much as I'd like!)
"Demon didn't even try, that's where they went wrong. They didn't even look into the problem and say "we don't have an issue with this", they just ignored it."
Indeedie, that's a bad thing.
However, I stand by my point - I don't want legislation on the 'Net at all. Governments that don't know anything about the Internet and its operation should not be making decisions about what they can/can't do with the Net, let alone what ISPs should/shouldn't do. This is why I'd quite like a 'data safehaven island' (as in Cryptonomicon).
~Tim
--
Re:Crazy? (Score:2)
I think you're missing the point (IANAL) the ISP is involved when the existance of (potentially) defamatory material on their servers is brought to their attention. Just because it's the Internet doesn't mean the medium is exempt from the laws of the country the server is hosted in.
This ruling (as I understand it) does not mean that ISPs in the UK will be required to monitor their spool, however they will have to act when informed of illegal/defamatory material. Rather than just ignoring the problem.
Re:Why monitor ? (Score:2)
The issue then was not defamation, but the end-result went the same way. Some legal department (or the FBI) pressures an ISP to remove something they host, the ISP has the choice of fighting it for no reward or simply pulling the plug on a site. Demon fought and lost, the US ISPs in the stories we read here simply pulled the plug.
There are also parallels here with the case in Bavaria/Germany where Felix Somm of Compuserve actually received a suspended prison sentence (if my memory serves me right) before winning the appeal. Compuserve had been held responsible for pornographic content that came in over the web.
On a totally different level, Justice Morland was the judge in *this* case. He has afaik a history of interesting rulings, rulings not necessarily backed by the evidence. I hope Demon have better luck in the appeal.
Re:whistles twice, knocks self on head (Score:2)
There is a story [see-scotland.com] that Berwick is still at war, as it was included at the start of the Crimean war, but excluded at the end. Dunno how acurate this is though.
Re:what is cool and not cool in the UK (Score:2)
In the UK we have a "Data Protection Act" and a "Data Protection Registrar" who do a heck of a lot to protect people's individual privacy. The system may not be perfect - but it has real teeth and it works. Doubleclick would simply not be allowed to do in the UK what they recently tried to do in the US.
In the USA I believe you have what is known as "Self regulation" when it comes to privacy. Viewed from here it would appear that it doesn't have any teeth and it doesn't work. Companies can do whatever they like to individuals data - until they do something so outrageous it has political consequences.
---
Oh! And anyone who hasn't tried decent "warm" beer should give it a go. The reason we don't drink our (decent) Beer cold is because it actually tastes of something nice, unlike Beer which has to be served ice-cold to hide the god-awful taste.
But be warned. Many English pubs now serve Beer which isn't fit to drink warm OR cold. So if you want to try some decent stuff ask a local first!
Re:go england? (Score:2)
What went on here was that someone posted a libelous message up to a newsserver run by an ISP. The ISP was informed of this and did not TRY to remove the message from their system. They refused to do so. If they had TRIED to cancel the message (yes, some news servers don't honor cancels) and had removed it from their own server, I cannot see how they could be held accountable for it.
I do not see much of a difference between running a newspaper with classifieds and a news server or
This does NOT mean that ISPs should need to monitor what goes in and out of the system. What this DOES mean is that they need to be responsive to complaints, just as any newspaper would be.
Now... As far as what country's laws to use when it comes to matters like that, I have no idea. The most logical solution would seem to be the country that the forum is hosted in, but this obviously does not work well for forums like usenet that does not have a single central location. I realize all of the above argument is pretty useless without a clear definition as to what SHOULD be illegal to publish, but this seems to make the most sense.
Please note that I am not making any sort of judgement of what I think of libel and slander laws. I DO believe it is possible to use words to harm another, however, so... you figure it out for yourself.
Re:I am a UK ISP. (Score:2)
You could lose your house, but maybe not if you've incorporated into a limited liability company. Or if it's in your wife's name before the tort. Of course, that may have other liabilities
Re:US-style libel going to Europe? (Score:2)
long been an excellent strategy for politicians and the wealthy to sue
newspapers for true accusations, a strategy that rarely backfires.
Free speech is very badly protected in the UK.
IMO, continental Europe tends to take matters of privacy far more seriously
than either UK or US, and matters of free speech as seriously as the
US. Don't let the UK's bad law misguide you as to the state of the
law in the rest of Europe.
Re:England, MAYBE Wales, PROB. NOT Scotland (Score:2)
a) Its not a ruling, according to the article. Demon -settled-.
b) This -may- affect Wales, but we Scots have our own legal system, so it doesnt -necessarily- affect us up here.
c) Can I use Slashdot to call Godfrey a greedy, grasping tosspot or not? Just as a theoretical question, y'know...
Easy problem to Solve (Score:2)
Re:go england? (Score:2)
Comparing this ISP to a newspaper isn't the best analogy, because a newspaper has editors who review and are responsible for the content of their newspaper. They are publishers.
A better analogy is to compare the ISP to a newsstand. They distribute content, but they do not review or edit any of it. They are merely distributors. Can a newssstand be sued for libel if they distribute a newspaper containing libelous information?
These apply to US law, but they do a good job of explaining libel, trade libel, slander and defamation, particularly with respect to the Internet and ISPs:
Of course that brings up an interesting question. Is Slashdot a publisher or a distributor? Does moderation constitue editorial control? By Slashdot, or by individual moderators? I'm so confused....
This is setting a very disturbing trend for Europe (Score:2)
Even if Laurence Godfrey wanted to sue for damages caused against him, shouldn't he be pursing the poster of the material and not the medium? In most cases that I've seen, the plaintiff would normally pursue restitution from the defamer and not from the media that broadcasted it on television or published in the press.
Filtering of information posted on the Internet by ISPs is also open to abuse. Imagine if a media conglomerate owning an ISP decides to start filtering out posted opinions contrary to those held by the corporation? This would cause an outrage in most Western democracies.
Being an Australian, we are about to suffer from the restrictive online policies instituted by the right wing John Howard and Richard Alston. This will possibly have a devastating impact on our already slow internet speeds (due to our geographic location to the rest of the world) and hamper the development of e-commerce as ISPs will be forced to screen all incoming data for pornographic and criminal data. Britain may also see a slow in the growth if they force their ISPs to screen their Internet traffic too for defamatory postings.
But getting back to the point of online democracy being threatened in Europe, this sets a disturbing trend as less and less people will be unable to post their opinions and criticisms without fear of being clamped down upon by an authoritarian judicial system. The best weapon to combat defamatory or racist, sexist or offensive sites on the net is information itself and raising awareness so the public can make their own minds up on what is the truth.
Governments cannot claim to be morally right and democratic on one hand, and hypocritically crush the right of to make criticisms (whether anonymous or openly)with the other. Europeans must draw the line now.
Free speech in the UK (Score:2)
The long and the short of it the law on the books was pretty clear cut. The book was pulled from circulation. He talked a bit about this at a book signing in the states in the early 90's.
Re:go england? (Score:2)
The point here is that demon were told that there was defamatory material and refused to take it down. I say screw them.
Re:Some are missing an important point... (Score:2)
notification for every single usenet article.
What's a news admin to do?
If it's reasonable to respond to one complaint,
but unreasonable to respond to all, where's
the line?
Re:go england? (Score:2)
kwsNI
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:2)
kwsNI
Crazy? (Score:2)
Shouldn't this guy have gone after the people that were slandering him rather than the ISP that it was posted to? Or did he go after both?
kwsNI
Re:Idea for all the English Slashdotters out there (Score:2)
kwsNI
Re:Free Speech must just be an American Thing (Score:2)
born in London, England, 1944
TomV
Re:Yeah, like the effect will last (Score:2)
Wales got an Assembly because it is a nation, but its powers are weak in case it acts like one. The Act of Union 1536 was an act of annexation, an attempt "to utterly extirp" the customs of Wales, to wipe out the language and the customs - in effect the first colony of the British Empire. Fortunately it has failed.
Scotland's Act of Union was passed by their own parliament (through corruption IIRC) and so they kept some of their independent bodies (i.e. legal system etc). Part of their Act was that the names "England" and "Scotland" would cease to be used and they would be known as "Britain" - however that agreement was soon broken. Hence the creation of a "Parliament" there to reflect the "different" status.
The first elections were thought to lend themselves to a more shock result in Scotland but it was Wales that gave the ruling Labour Party a bloody nose where Plaid Cymru (Lit: "Party of Wales", a political party espousing self-governance for Wales) came through with shock breakthroughs in traditional Labour Strongholds.
Britain itself comes from the Celtic name which survives in Welsh as Prydain - mutates (Celtic languages mutate their form in certain circumstances) to Brydain - given that the "d" is pronounced fairly similarly to a "t" it corrupted to Britain.
Re: English Parliament. Since Westminster still holds sovereign over the Assembly, giving England a legislative Parliament would create a democratic deficit in Wales - hence the increasing view of people is that some sort of federal system will be in place in the UK within 25 years. The view is that as Wales and Scotland evolve their systems to self-government then the regions of England will gain legislative regional Assemblys and England itself will become federal. This is a very desirable system - in that as Wales and Scotland have become focal points for constitutional change in the UK England is being left behind.
THe UK is decentralising slowly - finally joining the 20th Century! Hence it is only fair that all of the nations of the UK share in this.
England's historic regions have a lot of cultural differences. Indeed some are seperate Celtic countries in their own right (Cornwall : Kernow in their own language), while others such as Lancshire and Yorkshire have different needs and foci then for example, Kent or Wiltshire. Cumbria for example had its own celtic dialect.
The most cheering fact of this silent revolution in the UK is that we are learning to live with our cultural differences in a peacable fashion. Wales and Scotland are growing up, and I sincerely hope that the old rivalries will be forgotten as we enter this century as friends bonded together by choice.
The hope is that either the "Council of the Isles" (a body of representatives of the Wales/Scotland/Westminster/N Ireland/ Ireland/ IOM etc etc) or the House of Lords becomes the "federal parliament" and that the other bodies send representatives to them. As Europe evolves such a system would see all parts of the UK sending direct representatives to the EU, as opposed to now where the UK government makes decisions for Wales/Scotland etc in proxy.
The main difference is that the Assembly has no fiscal or primary legislative power - it can only amend existing legislation without being unable to create new laws.
The upshot though is that treating "England & Wales" as one entity will become increasingly inaccurate. Hence issues like this become of interest to us in Wales as we see the opportunities to make our own law. Already the moves towards a "Welsh" legal system are starting.
If you haven't already guessed, I support Wales having full self-government
I am a UK ISP. (Score:2)
Some are missing an important point... (Score:2)
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