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Australian Website Bans ... Australians
Nazlfrag writes "Earlier this month the blog and discussion forum ZGeek was sued for $42 million AUD over a user's comment. The plaintiffs are aspiring movie producers who claim to have lost a movie deal due to a 9/11 conspiracy discussion thread. Even though the initial lawsuit has been thrown out, and the company complied with lawyers' demands by taking down the offending posts, it is believed the plaintiffs will file suit again. In addition to suing the forum, in an Australian first they have been granted an injunction to force the ISPs to disclose the IP addresses of the two posters involved. Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia, and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again."
So a 9/11 Australian conspiracy theorist, Greg Smith, gets his butt whooped in an on-line thread that he participated in (big surprise). And now he wants to sue over his damaged character? I suspect his damaged reputation has much more to do with what he said and how he handled it.
So where is the cache of the thread?
Why does everyone keep treating them like a bunch of criminals?
Because the purpose of every country's legislative branch is to add laws, not remove them. The judiciary's job is to review laws, not remove them. And the executive branch's job is to suggest, review, and approve laws, not remove them. Therefore, the older the country, the more laws. And it doesn't take long before all the major ones required have been added, so there is an inevitable climb toward the bottom, to regulate even the smallest matters, until everyone is a criminal, though they may not know or consider themselves as such, in some fashion.
Consider this: The Ten Commandments contain 297 words, the Bill of Rights 463 words, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 266 words. A recent federal directive regulating the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Who the heck moderated this interesting? It's supposed to be funny!
Most of the ten commandments are not enforceable by law though. Murder the theft are crimes. Bearing false witness is only a crime in some circumstances. More to the point it is against the law to enforce some of them, seeing as most western countries have some provisions for freedom of religion).
Laws do get removed and replaced over time. What tends to happen is that breaches of some particular law first start getting minimal sentences. Then cases invoking it start getting dismissed the public prosecutor stops bringing the charges forward.
After a while no one remembers the law and no one heeds it. Eventually someone will notice and it will get repealed. These days there are openly practicing Wiccans in most western countries. Go back far enough and you will find laws prohibiting the practice of witchcraft. It was once a crime but is no longer viewed as a crime.
read my mind at http://the-willows.blogspot.com/
You would be surprised at how unobvious that is to so many people. I recently spent the better part of 5 or 6 posts talking to a guy over subsidies and their intent while all along he couldn't distinguish between protecting a food source (starvation) compared to protecting manufacturing jobs and so on.
Don't be surprised.
I'm in Australia and I just registered and posted.
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
Do, please, name one well governed country with stable property rights, a functioning financial systems, and access to world markets, that has ever suffered a famine.
[FUCK BETA]
Sorry, I'm only in my thirties. I don't remember the time before pricks in Parliament. Neither do my parents.
what's awful is that although its the most spectacular troll i've done in awhile, its this retired chestnut of a joke that should be old and tired and expired by now
i think this silly joke has been featured in at least 100 fark headlines over the years, no?
oy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm normally for heavy regulation of corporations so long as it is GOOD regulation; corporations NEVER have the public welfare or public good in mind. People say the electricity problems in California were from overragulation, but rather than overragulation they stemmed from BAD regulation.
In the US, there is a lot of BAD regulation regarding farming. Small family farms are dying, big megacorporation food factories are taking over. And the food sucks. I'm glad I have a back yard I can grow a garden in, too bad the city won't let me keep livestock.
Have you ever driven past a mega hog factory? They're environmental nightmares.
Free Martian Whores!