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Cyberlibel Damages Awarded In Canada
mszeto writes "The Globe And Mail is
reporting that an Ontario judge has awarded an archaeologist 125k$ in damages after someone smeared her using email. According to the lawyer: 'People seem to think there is a level of anonymity to e-mail and the Internet. And that it's a lawless area. And clearly it is not, nor should it be.'"
Always state the facts. Don't make shit up. You can say a product is crap or that you disagree with a company, but have proof to back up your opinions.
This is not specifically about one email - the email in it's entirety were posted on a website, and asked that it be redistributed. The point of defendent's legal representation is to show the holes in prosecution's arguements - no representation, this is what you get.
$175 K is assumed to be a significant portion of his net worth - would you even bother if you were in similar circumstances?
The precedent will be overturned when proper representation happens.
The burden of proof is on the defendant to prove what they wrote was true, but obviously this only happens after the plaintiff has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did indeed write what they are accused of writing.
This is obvious. If someone libels me by writing that I committed a crime, then I don't have to prove that I didn't commit that crime in order to sue them - before they throw around accusations like that they have to be able to prove what they said (or I'd be considered guilty until proven innocent.)
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Zerguy is a witch and so zerguy must be burned at the stake. I saw Zerguy doing unspeakable acts worshipping Satan.
Zerguy is a communist spy and so must be locked up to protect our great country.
Oh yeah, Zerguy is linked to a terrorist group.
You may choose to ignore one or two of these facts, but you'd be blind to ignore all this unrefutable evidence.
The sooner we get rid of zerguy, the sooner your kids can be safe.
For god sakes, think of the children!
Beyond a reasonable doubt, in a civil trial? What are they smoking up there in Canada?
Usually the standard of proof in civil cases is "a preponderance of the evidence" or "more likely than not."
What?
Correct, you can claim that CmdrTaco is an asshole without any legal worries. However, if - for example - you claimed that he was an asshole because he was using the Slashdot subscription money to fund his drug habit, then you would open yourself up to a libel lawsuit.
Collecting a judgement is much the same in Canada as in the US, so yes, it could be difficult for Ross to collect. In this case an additional factor is the fact that the defendant is native. If he is a status Indian living on reserve, there are further complications. For instance, the land his house is on does not legally belong to him but is technically held in trust for his band by Canada. It cannot be sold to satisfy a judgement.
Or what about simply SPF.
Seriously, there has been enough noise made about it lately. I jumped on to set up SPF in all of about 10 minutes, it really was that simple.
Since then I have been using the Thunderbird Extension for Sender Policy Framework as a quick and easy way to see which and how many domains publishing SPF records and have noted a few interesting things.
Namely, depsite the fact that MS wants their own standard to be thrown out into the marketplace (namely Sender ID), they are publishing SPF records on both Microsoft.com and on Hotmail.com. If I was the kind of guy who used the word "kudos" I would say "Kudos to them". I am no more of a fan of MS than anyone else here, but, those two domains alone represent a not insignificant percentage of spam floating around that can be fairly simply removed with a mail server reconfig. AOL is also publishing, so well done there.
Gmail are as well of course, but would you expect any less?
Yahoo are not, which amazes me - I realize they want to push DomainKeys, but, I see no reason for them not to be publishing SPF records as well.
The one that absolutely staggered me though was Citibank.com. I recall reading somewhere (no link sorry, but a quick google illustrates the point) that something like half all the phishing emails floating about are aimed at Citibank. For the sake of a few minutes, they could at least give people who want to, a surefire way of rejecting all phishing emails at MTA time. They must have among the crappest DNS admins on earth, or some very bad policy makers.
I shall end this spiel with a request. If you administer a DNS, and you relay, or can easily relay through known machines every time (which would be about 99% of us), then please publish SPF records. You don't have to use other people's records yourself to reject mail - just publish your own records so that other can reject mail that is purportedly from you, but isn't.
The nice thing about all this from the running a receiving MTA perspective, is you can phase it in. Pretty soon, I will be rejecting all mail that is fails SPF checks, but still accepting for people that don't yet publish records.
So please, do it now, jump over to the SPF link at the top of this mail - there is a webform there which dumbs down creating your SPF record as much as it can be dumbed down, and actually gives you a line to paste into your zone file.
Spam could be all but gone in a week for those who want to reconfigure their mail servers to reject it if those records are publish. Imagine that - effectively wiping out spam almost instantly!
If you won't do it for me, do it for the children, oh won't somebody please think of the children.....
Please, cry me a river. According to what was reported, the guy ran a scam with the intended effect of ruining someone's career -- surely easily equivalent to $150k in real damages -- and we are supposed to somehow feel that it is and injustice when he gets punished in kind?
BTW, someone who had $150k in clear assets was not *that* poor. NOW, he's poor.
Speaking as someone accused of libel [and successfully backed the person off in one fell swoop of the CCC] I know what constitutes libel [at least in Canada].
;-)
The jist of Libel is [around section 297-8 of the CCC]
s297 - In sections 303, 304 and 308, "newspaper" means any paper, magazine or periodical containing public news, intelligence or reports of events, or any remarks or observations thereon, printed for sale and published periodically or in parts or numbers, at intervals not exceeding thirty-one days between the publication of any two such papers, parts or numbers, and any paper, magazine or periodical printed in order to be dispersed and made public, weekly or more often, or at intervals not exceeding thirty-one days, that contains advertisements, exclusively or principally.
s298 - (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.
However, my defense [IIRC section 309] was
s309 - No person shall be deemed to publish a defamatory libel by reason only that he publishes defamatory matter that, on reasonable grounds, he believes is true, and that is relevant to any subject of public interest, the public discussion of which is for the public benefit.
In my case I was outing a crypto troll in sci.crypt
URL for these sections http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/c-46/42515.html
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.