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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.'"
I hope the spammers don't all sue me for sending out millions of emails that say all spammers are evil and that spam should be ignored!
--- We need more Ron Paul!
"People seem to think there is a level of anonymity to e-mail and the Internet."
Ha!
SMTP headers can be forged. Windows machines can be 0wn3d. Any Tom, Dick, or Vladimir can set up a rogue SMTP server, claim to be Yahoo! mail, and start spewing email.
You can't nail someone to the wall until you have a means to prove that they did what you claim.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
But don't the British commonwealth have some kind of crazy overzealous Libel laws where the burden of proof is on the defendant?
Use anonymous re-mailer before slandering colleagues. Also, remove personal sig with my name, tele number, and address, too.
/s/
Mr. Gates is a big fairy!
--
Robert M. Shankely
348-8347
234 Niam St.
Provo, Utah.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I don't see anything at all controversial about this ruling.
Photos.
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.
I think that "cyberlibel" punishments are wrong for one very simple reason:
It is exceptionally easy to frame someone. I could easily send you an email with a return address of Bill Clinton. It's as easy to forge as the return address on regular mail. If someone claiming to be me went and slandered a bunch of people, should I be punished? Absolutely not. That is why this sort of thing should not be allowed until we have a reliable method for tracing emails (which we almost certainly never will.)
**This begins my ever-changing sig
We need a -1 RTFA moderation option!
**This concludes my ever-changing sig
When will the Star Wars kid sue?!?!?
Hmph....Does this mean me saying "CmdrTaco sucks*" on a /. discussion mean he can come sue the pants off me? A scary prescendent to be set indeed....There are a hell of a lot of websites, and a lot of personal pages out there that probably slander people left and right...What about them?
:)
*I've never met Mr. Rob Malda, so I can't attest or unattest to his personality
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
I could use some money! Quick! Somebody say something mean about me! Call me names! Make sure it is untrue. Looks like "grave robber" is worth $125k (Canadian) I bet I can get a few of those or worse here....
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
While the article really diden't delve into any of the facts, I was able to glean that they just sued some poor guy for all his money. The article then mentioned some legal victory of suing a homeless guy for insulting a corporation. I think this really just shows that you are only safe in the legal system from slanderous comments if you have money to back you up, if you are poor, Internet or not, you will be f'd sans reach-around.
If the "alleged" author actually admits to writing the e-mail, then cyber-libel becomes regular, boring, plain-ol' libel.
This article doesn't give us enough detail.
However if you are being "framed" it should be trivial for even the most junior of lawyers to cast enough resonable doubt on the e-mails authenticity.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Seastead this.
So don't get your shirt in a knot. All the ruiling did was establish that, yes, if you can show beyond a reasonable doubt that John Smith sent the message, "It was just the internet" is not a reasonable defence against Libel charges.
IANAL, but I had to read up on this stuf in journalism classes. Couldn't the person have created one of those free anonymous web pages hosted in a foreign country with the libelous accusations, and referenced it with a hyperlink?
"Cmdr Taco eats babies" -- libelous
"Cmdr Taco eats babies, says Scandinavian Web Page" -- fair game?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The internet is NOT immune to law, this person was libeled, and proved it in court. The judge did as he would do in any other libel case and awarded damaged to the victim, just because this is involved the internet does not make it any different to any of the other thousands of cases that go on each year in courts around the world.
Now, people will say 'oh, but email is notoriously unreliable for purposes of tracking down the origionator', but in most cases that isnt true. You can track email back to the server that sent it, and in this case the victims lawyer managed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this message origionated from the defendant. And the fact that the defendant didnt even bother turning up to defend himself isnt a plus point in my humble opinion.
But maybe it should be different. Libel in a signed, reputable publication is much more damaging than in anonymous email, as long as the readers can tell the difference. Which we still can. Email is likely to remain 99% crap, like everything else, so this victory really belongs to the old media, which now are judged according to the lower bar of email.
--
make install -not war
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!
Why is this guy keeping human remains in his driveway?
I know some families have their own burial plots on their land, but usually they don't put a driveway over it.
I have to stop wasting so much time reading Slashdot. It's interfering with my crystal meth addiction.
Do we need to cyberinvent new cyberterms whenever an event occurs that has to do with computers?
-b
myselfmusic
I am not from Canada and don't know the legal system there and was wondering what are the odds the plantiff will acutally collect the damages? In America you can sue and get a judgement, but collecting the judgement is a whole different matter.
In fact, the Goldman's still can't get O.J. Simpson to pay up the 33 million dollars they won from him in a civil trial after the death of their son. I know that a judge can issue a bench warrant or declare someone in contempt for not showing up or paying, but that never seems to amount to much since the police don't actively try to find and arrest the person.
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?
...and did it occur to you that the entire concept of "framing people" is not new to the justice system? That we have standards of evidence and guilt? Granted the case was in Canada, but in the US, the burden of proof is quite high, at least in criminal cases- in civil cases, it's lower, but you've still got to prove well beyond, on average, what one of us would consider good enough proof.
It's one of the reasons computer crimes are hard to prove, and I think the system has dealt with it quite well. Methinks you've been watching Hackers too much.
Please help metamoderate.
If he digs you up in a thousands years, puts you in a museum, and you call him a grave robber, then I'd call him a necromancer.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Considering that defamation in the form of libel/slander is defined as "issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm" I don't see how that could be the case. There are perhaps jurisdictions where saying harmful but true things are actionable but those are, by definition, not libel/slander.
Probally the french version. They use a comma instead of a decimal too. Plus, its like they have a different word for almost everything.
rewriting history since 2109
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.
Considering the amount of made up information regarding canadas laws in that respect, could you please point me to the part of the legal code where that is the case?
I don't remember seeing anything to that effect in the laws I've read first-hand regarding the truth. In fact, the laws I recall give the speaker the benefit of the doubt and say that if there's reason to believe that they thought they were speaking the truth in good faith, they're still off the hook.
It's been a long time.