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UK's Demon Settles Usenet Libel Case
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 ...
I remember this asshole. What a jerk!
:-(
He was even a net-legend.
I guess a legend with a lawyer can set an unfortunate precedent...
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
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 ?
--
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
> not only panders to net.kookery, but fails to recognize the decentralized nature of Usenet.
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.
AJB
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.
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...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
See this on Demon's web site for some intresting background on the case.
So, would all of you people reading this from England please flame this post and also leave me your ISP so that I can sue them? I'll split any profits :)
kwsNI