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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 think we have laws against these strategic lawsuits against public participation.
Not only does this attempt to suppress free speech by means of the court, but it also treats the man like a serf. They sue the university (i.e. the employer or, in their view, the master) knowing that even if their suit isn't successful new policies will arise limiting employees' ability to have personal websites. The Servile State is as relevant as ever.
The publisher's problem is that this isn't some nut-job that can just be dismissed out of hand. Dale Askey appears to have the qualifications to know exactly what he's talking about here so they have to try and shut him up. But suing McMaster University over the personal blog of one of their employees personal blog opinions is way beyond reasonable -- although that's probably either were the money is, or that they hope to punish Mr. Askey by getting the university to fire him as him being too much trouble to keep onboard.
Under all circumstances the publisher is wrong here. 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's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You're an idiot if you think the subject matter of a book is what determines its quality.
it's more nuanced than that. Accidental is probably not what you're thinking of. What I think you're trying to refer to is called Actual Malice and this comes into play only when discussing public figures (or limited purpose public figures) on a matter of public interest. Otherwise, the plaintiff does not need to prove reckless disregard for the truth (which has it's own tests).
but this tiresome meme regurgitation has to be struck down.
These tiresome smackdowns have to be regurgitated upon. The FAQ says (or said? not looking) to focus on positive moderation for a reason. Be positive, mang.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Librarians as a group tend to have pretty strong feelings about this sort of thing. If this publisher thought the blog post of one librarian might turn other librarians against them, they haven't seen anything like what this lawsuit will do.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.