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UK Court Order Served Over Twitter, To Anonymous User Posing As Another
SpuriousLogic spotted this story on the BBC, from which he excerpts: "The High Court has given permission for an injunction to be served via social-networking site Twitter. The order is to be served against an unknown Twitter user who anonymously posts to the site using the same name as a right-wing political blogger. The order demands the anonymous Twitter user reveal their identity and stop posing as Donal Blaney, who blogs at a site called Blaney's Blarney. The order says the Twitter user is breaching the copyright of Mr. Blaney. He told BBC News that the content being posted to Twitter in his name was 'mildly objectionable.' Mr. Blaney turned to Twitter to serve the injunction rather than go through the potentially lengthy process of contacting Twitter headquarters in California and asking it to deal with the matter. UK law states that an injunction does not have to be served in person and can be delivered by several different means including fax or e-mail."
Time for me to delete my social networking accounts methinks, it's lost all the glitter and sparkle as my eyes have been gradually opened to the loss of privacy they effect and the risk of identity theft they engender. I've watched facebook degenerate into an oozing fest of self indulgence and crappy quizzes about peoples aura/star sign/some other mystic crap or how good they are in bed, and too many of my friends now use it to grandly announce every mundane detail of their life to the world as if they're some sort of celebrity and we're all supposed to be deeply concerned about them cutting their pinky finger or enraptured by their new haircut, etc etc. A friend related similar sentiments to me earlier today, saying people were using it as if it were twitter.
:P)
What concerns me the most is the loss of privacy entailed in having an account with any of these sites, knowing that cops and employers can pull up all this info instantly... it's a worry. Enough ranting for me, I'm going to delete my facebook account and my twitter account (which I created once and used never
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
*twitch*
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=intensive+purposes
THAT out of the way...
There's a bit of a difference between your case of the real James Bond and Ian Fleming's James Bond. The real James Bond wasn't a spy, and Ian Fleming certainly wasn't trying to pass of the books' character James Bond as if they were the real James Bond-the-spy.
The real james bond was an ornithologist, says wikipedia with some citation to lord knows whether it's a credible source, but whatever.
This Donal Blaney chap, however, is complaining that somebody else posting under the name Donal Blaney is actually trying to pass themselves off as being this particular Donal Blaney chap... using not only his name, but his picture, his actual blog's name, etc.
Whether or not he has a case will be up to the courts to decide anyway, but I do believe he's got -a- point.. even if it's not a very sharp one, given that twitter does usually look into these things to make sure celebrities get to use their own name if a fan or foe set up a twitter account with that celebrity's name and was posing as them.
( not too sure what they do if it's really just an account from somebody else with the same name and they do -not- pose as the celebrity; I should hope they'd tell the celeb to go take a hike and open a new account under a different name. )
Actually, "Anonymous coward" is exactly the term the real Blarney actually used on his blog, writing "I successfully obtained, thanks to the masterful advocacy of Matthew Richardson, in the High Court today compelling an anonymous coward to stop pretending to be me on Twitter and to reveal his or her identity.".
Oh, you can deliver an injunction anywhere. Hell, if they were on the Moon, as long as they can receive it, you can deliver it. The correct question here is "if they're not in the UK, is there anything stopping them from just completely ignoring it?" and the answer would be "no". Of course, you next recourse then would be to either attempt to get the criminal courts involved, so you can have them extradited (doubtful in this case;the courts are rightly leery of getting involved in civil actions like this), or you go to the country they're in (e.g. the US) and get a judgement against them there, which depending on the locale can be easy or hard. In the EU, the court would be likely to take the UK's court decision into consideration, likewise the US, Canada and other commonwealth nations. China or Nigeria etc., not so much.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
Stop posting as me,
I'll sue!!!!
you have been warned
claiming to be this guy in various contexts. Streisand effect here we come.
Don't matter I'll sue them all!!!
I have friends in thee RIAA!
The twitter account in question is @blaneysblarney, which is the name of Mr Blaney's blog. The account photo is copied from Mr Blaney's blog. The first post of @blaneysblarney says "Comrades, I thought I would set up a more political twitter and keep my other twitter account for more personal stuff."
So it seems he's trying to prevent someone using his photo and the name of his blog to pass off their words as his. I'm guessing he's asserting copyright on his photo and the name of his blog, which seems reasonable.
I am the REAL Donal Blaney, and I am appalled at these blatant attempts to smear my name and reputation on the Internet. Rest assured that all such attempts are being monitored and recorded and that all those who attempt to act in such fashion will be prosecuted to the full extent of the laws pertinent to the case. The REAL Donal Blarney