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Publisher Sues University Librarian Over His Personal Blog Posts
McGruber writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has the news that Herbert Richardson, founder of Edwin Mellen Press is suing McMaster University and University Librarian Dale Askey for $3 Million over Mr. Askey's posts on a personal blog. In 2010 Mr. Askey wrote a blog post about Edwin Mellen Press on his personal Web site, Bibliobrary. Mr. Askey referred to the publisher as 'dubious' and said its books were often works of 'second-class scholarship.' For a few months afterward, several people chimed in in the blog's comments section, some agreeing with Mr. Askey, others arguing in support of the publisher. In a February 11 statement, the McMaster University Faculty Association (MUFA) stated that The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) 'and the MUFA Executive agree that this case represents a serious threat to the freedom of academic librarians (pdf) to voice their professional judgement and to academic freedom more generally.'"
I do not know much about defamation law in other countries, but in the US there would be no valid case. The statements are derogatory, but are opinions and not facts. Only provably false statements of fact can give rise to an action for defamation in the United States. Of course anyone can always try to sue for anything, but the plaintiff here would lose quickly and probably face a judgment for costs and fees for filing a case unsupported by law (Rule 11).
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
The prior poster was referring to the fictional Librarian of the Unseen University in Ankh Mor-pork on the Discworld in novels written by Terry Pratchett. People don't criticize him as he tends to rip off their arms and or head.
I work for a small academic publisher and I've seen the Edwin Mellen press at some academic conventions. Nice people, but they totally come across as carnival hucksters. They get their business knowing full well how important "publish or perish" is in academia. Their reps will literally ask every single person who walks by in the exhibit hall: "Do you want to get published?" (including me, on multiple occasions, wearing my vendor badge!) They basically make their money from minimal production values (look at their covers or insides of their books to see what I mean), small print runs, and very high prices. They sell a limited number of books to libraries, to the author, and maybe a handful elsewhere, and then they're done. They claim to be subsidy-free (i.e., not a vanity press) but I don't know if this is true or not.
The proper course of action would have been for them to line up equally (apparently) qualified academicians on their side of the argument and let the book-buying institutions decide for themselves. It would seem that both sides of the argument were already being hashed out on the blog, and now arrives The Streisand Effect in spades!
It would appear that this company's reputation is already well pretty. well established
The nicest thing I have seen so far are the comments that say it is just one step above a vanity press.
I wrote:
If I think that some publisher's output is poor, that is my opinion. It is not libel.
Ah, in the United States perhaps. But if I express that opinion in Canada, it might in fact be defamation. Oops!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_defamation_law
True North Strong and Free, indeed ...
Quebec does have an explicit prohibition on SLAPP suits, but to my knowledge, the other provinces do not .
davecb@spamcop.net