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Demon.uk "not backing down" On Godfrey
larien writes
"In response to the reporting on their case (See past
stores) Demon has issued this press release.
In particular, the release includes the following from Demon's director "We have in no way changed our stance, and are extremely confident of winning the case against Dr
Laurence Godfrey."
" They have, however, choosen to not attend the pre-trial hearing, which probably means Dr. Godfrey will win. In related new, Spridle sent us a story from Silicon. eBay is rethinking any UK development, following this suit.
I remember Lawrence Godfrey.
He was a pain in the butt long back well before the Web. He had a habit threatening to sue (and maybe in fact did) all sorts of Usenet posters who said yucky things about him.
Seems like most of these cases in the US get
trivially tossed out of court because of
first amendment issues.
There is too much regulation of commerce in Europe and too many dumb regulations. They need to deregulate telecomm and stop passing stupid censorship or "privacy" laws that are unenforcable. And while they're at it, stop the laughable hysteria over genetically modified crops. Poisonous tomatoes have been produced through normal "genetic modification" (grafting, crossbreeding), so the touchy-feely feeling of safety of the former vs the latter is dubious.
Is it legal to show someone getting shot, knifed, raped, or beaten during prime time TV hours in the UK? Censorship is a bug.
This is Demon backing down in a big way on the case.
The Godfrey libel is a puerile flamewar. Godfrey posts insults, he responds to the flames with lawyers (and has a long track record of doing this). Details beyond that are irrelevant, but it's certainly not a strong case for Godfrey to prove the libel. Any reasonable defence to it would have him laughed out of court.
The more important point is that by abandoning the appeal, Demon are giving up on the fight to have any form of "common carrier" status recognised for ISPs in UK law. This is a sad move for the Net in general.
Demon will probably win the battle (the libel) and lose the war (ISP status). 8-(
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dingbat@codesmiths.com
IANAL, but...
Generally the loser of the case pays the winner's costs - as well as his own. However, it is possible in a civil case (such as libel) for the defendant to pay into court a sum of money before the case is heard. If the plaintiff decides that the sum paid in is enough he can take it and the case ends there.
On the other hand, he may decide that the offer is too small and proceed to trial. In this case, if he is successful in his complaint then damages will be assessed by jury. If the sum they come up with is less than the amount paid in by the defendant, then the plaintiff has to pay his own costs!
Perhaps US taxes would be lower and European taxes higher if only the Europeans would repay their wartime loans from the US(going back to WWI). The Finns are the only ones in Europe who ever borrowed money from the US and then paid it back.
Right. You keep the war criminals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^rocket/nuclear scientists and we'll keep the money, OK?
I owe more money than most Indian & Chinese peasants....why? Because I have money. The money that US companies might owe one another or some foreign bank is not what is being refered to. European GOVERNMENTS borrowed money from the United States and then refused to pay it back. The negotiations over the WWI debts ran throughout the 1920s. The result was ZERO, ZIP, NADA. This is one reason why Americans didn't want to enter WWII....they'd been screwed once. And, yes...they got screwed again. Ever hear of the Marshall Plan? Look it up in a history book. Who do you think paid and rebuilt Western Europe after the Germans finished playing their silly games, the Bolivians?
FYI, the US didn't even have a national deficit until WWI.
To protect themselves from oppressive governments made up of in-bred, child molesters.....something Brits have always seemed to have accepted.
A little Second World War history for you....after the British Army's valiant escape at Dunkirk (in which they lost most of their weapons), the NRA collected several hundred thousand pistols,rifles and shotguns from it's members and sent them to Britain. These freely donated weapons were used by both the British Armed Forces and Home Guard. At the end of the war, the surviving weapons were rounded up, stamped by the British government and resold in the US. The Brits (as always) made a tidy profit. These weapons are now identifiable by the British proof stamps and are collectors items.
Always nice to have those crazy Americans with all their guns come bail you out when you're up shit creek, isn't it?
Watch out thos this kind of post. The bastard Godfrey could just sue slahsdot for this.
I couldn't really find much info about the background of the story, even from the BBC news item.
All it says is that Dr. Godfrey is suing because he found some "defamatory content" and that demon.uk would not remove it. Any idea as to what that content is?
I'm not sure what Dr. Godfrey's point is. Unless it was a personal attack on the website, I see no reason for him to sue. I guess he could also be one of those wannabe heroes. Oooh, we're protecting the children of the world by suing Disney for having some clouds that vaguely form a word that can't really be seen unless you watch it in slow motion.
Well, I hope that Dr. Godfrey is happy. He stopped ebay from coming into the UK. Wow, big victory for him.....
Couple of key clarifications:
Demon is _not_ Dr. Godfreys ISP.
Other ISPs were also contacted, and AIUI refused to delete the article. Dr. Godfrey has only initiated legal proceedings (AFAIK) against Demon.
The court case is ongoing - Demon have not lost. They have lost some pretrial bits - but I'm not sure what.
Cheers - Colin.
Deja still indexes these articles, but you will notice some interesting holes when you search for them.
Try a power search for "soc.culture.thai" in the forum field and "Laurence AND Godfrey" in the author field, and sort by date. You will notice big gaps of results labeled "Article Unavailable".
for those not familiar:
In middle of flame war, user in America posted an article to newsgroup, forging the From: address to be that of Mr Godfrey. Mr Godfrey contacted his ISP, Demon, asking for them to remove the message from their servers (despite the fact that the message poster has no connection with DEmon). Demon (for a variety of reasons) said no. Godfrey sued for libel, and won.
The implications for this are wide-ranging -- that ISPs in Britain are somehow responsible for the messages that pass through their servers. The only good thing to come out of it is that it may be the incentive needed to get the British libel laws rewritten for the 21st century (because they've barely been touched in the 20th)
rOD.
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Rod Begbie done this, and he's not
Because the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
"They who would give up essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
why don't you wait for him to come along?
Yeah. Shit in the can
Eat my butt
I submitted this exact same story 20 minutes after Demon originally released this press release on 11th June? How is it more appropriate for it to appear now than it was 6 days ago?
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
That's kinda sad that they are giving up so easily.
Actually the US are the biggest debtor in the world... believe it or not.
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Full Time Idiot and Miserable Sod
Nothing is real but the pain
If you want an idea of Godfrey's general net attitude, take a look on uk.net where's he's posted (and cross posted to news.admin.net-abuse.*) a bunch of self promoting, bloated, "I win", "I'm a hero" articles, then ran, refusing to dicuss them at all.
This of course is *my* opinion, so sue me Dr. Buttmunch if you don't like it.
What Godfrey has won so far is a pre-trial judgement that Demon's defence has no merit in law. This defence was essentialy that Demon were not knowingly publishing the defamatory posting. The judge ruled that once Godfrey had notified them of the posting and asked them to delete it they were indeed publishing it.
The judge also noted that Godfrey has a long history of trolling on nation-related newsgroups, and that as a result the damages that would be awarded would likely be very small. The interesting question will be who pays the costs of the case.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
>In middle of flame war, user in America posted an article to newsgroup, forging the From: address to be that of Mr Godfrey.
>Mr Godfrey contacted his ISP, Demon, asking for them to remove the message from their servers
>Demon (for a variety of reasons) said no. Godfrey sued for libel, and won.
What had always confused me, is why this was a libel case at all. (and why it was against demon, not the poster)
Consider a comparasion - I phone someone (and say I am Joe Soap) and proceed to express "bad" opinions about something or other, but not against Joe Soap himself Would I be done for libel? Would the phone company, if they refused to phone the reciever and apologise on behalf of Joe Soap? I don't think so, I think a fraud case against the forger would be more appropiate. Or was a libel case chosen as the laws are more liberal?
Also, if it was treated as fraud, demon could have done something about it from day one, as they are well within their AUP to cancel fraudelent postings (as it's abuse of the internet, as opposed to abuse on the internet, which their AUP allows them to take action on)
It would have died down a lot quicker and nicer all around, if the posting was cancelled in the grounds it was forged, and a simple explaination "someone forged my name, it wasn't me" was posted to the relevent newsgroup. It does make me wonder why this didn't happen.
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Exigo spamos et dona ferentes