India Says Google & Facebook Should Prescreen All User Generated Content To Stop Jerks

from the don't-disparage-me,-bro dept

If you thought pushing companies to monitor for infringement or terrorism were bad enough, apparently officials in the Indian government have asked Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo to pre-screen all user-generated content to try to remove "disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory" content from being posted.

At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. “This is unacceptable,” he told attendees, the executive said, and he asked them to find a way to monitor what is posted on their sites.

In the second meeting with the same executives in late November, Mr. Sibal told them that he expected them to use human beings to screen content, not technology, the executive said.

The three executives said Mr. Sibal has told these companies that he expects them to set up a proactive prescreening system, with staffers looking for objectionable content and deleting it before it is posted.

Apparently, Kapil Sibal, India's Minister for Telecommunications, doesn't comprehend the scale of what he's asking, or the fact that it's impossible. How does one become a bureaucrat in charge of a technology field when one can't comprehend such basic concepts? Oh crap, do I have to pre-screen for such "disparaging" remarks now?

Seriously, we're seeing this kind of insanity more and more these days, where politicians, who clearly have absolutely no freaking clue about the technology they're regulating, are coming up with positively insane suggestions, with no comprehension about the ramifications. The end effect in this case, would almost certainly be the end of any kind of user-generated content system in India. Is that really what Sibal wants?

Filed Under: defamation, india, kapil sibal, monitoring, social media, user generated content
Companies: facebook, google, microsoft, yahoo

If At First You Fail In Suing A Blogger For Defamation Over His Description Of You Shooting Two Dogs, Try, Try Again

from the double-jeopardy dept

I have to admit that I was pretty sure I've written about this case before, but in searching through the archives, I can't find it. So, here's the quick summary of Comins v. VanVoorhis. Christopher Comins, a wealthy Florida businessman, found out about some dogs running around some cows in a field owned by a business associate. Comins, apparently believing the dogs were wolves, went to the field (with permission of the owner) with some guns and shot the two dogs over and over again. Originally, he claimed self-defense, but after the following video appeared on YouTube showing the whole incident, that story didn't quite hold: The story made the national press. It was also picked up on many blogs, including this blog post by University of Florida student Matthew Frederick VanVoorhis. VanVoorhis' description of the events is certainly "almost novelistic," as the CitMedia link above suggests. As such it does assume a few things, such as emotions, and may not be perfectly accurate in the timeline. But does it rise to the level of defamation? That seems extraordinarily unlikely, at best, but Comins chose to sue him for defamation. Seeing as the story was covered widely by the media, and there's a video of the events in question, you might think that it's a bit strange to sue a random blogger who very few people read. Perhaps he really is "the easiest target," as some suggest. If anything, it had all the hallmarks of a SLAPP suit, especially since VanVoorhis' post also questioned Cumin's connections to politically powerful figures, and how that might impact any lawsuit concerning the shootings.

Either way, despite the video, Comins ended up being acquitted of the shooting, with the judge claiming that shooting a couple dogs at extremely close range was not torturing an animal. As the link in this paragraph notes, it seems like that's the kind of question a jury should answer, rather than a judge.

As for VanVoorhis, it turns out that the case against him was also shot down, but on specific procedural grounds. Basically, under Florida law, you have to provide specific notice before suing for defamation. VanVoorhis insists no such notification was given. Cumins insists that it was but there was a procedural mistake in letting the court know. Either way, the court granted summary judgment, solely on that issue, rather than discussing any of the free speech issues.

VanVoorhis, represented by Randazza Legal Group (whose cases we seem to write about a lot around here...), followed up by pushing for sanctions, claiming that Comins' lawyer falsely told the court that VanVoorhis had been notified under the law. That motion was denied, though apparently the court called it "a very, very close call."

Comins... in response, appears to have simply filed a new defamation lawsuit against VanVoorhis, using statements from the blog that VanVoorhis set up to cover stories related to the lawsuit itself. I have no idea if the statements in question are actually libelous (though, the bar for defaming a public person, like Comins, is substantially higher than someone else). But, either way, I do question the wisdom of suing yet again, especially suing someone to whom he already lost a lawsuit. It certainly feels like just another attempt to effectively retry the same lawsuit, which still has the feel of a SLAPP. It's just that Comins and his lawyer found different quotes to use.

Of course, every time Comins takes action like this, it just brings the original video and the original story back into the spotlight. I can't see how that helps his image at all. One of the things in defamation cases is that you're supposed to try to take actions to minimize the damages. Suing yet again doesn't seem likely to do that.

Filed Under: blogs, christopher comins, defamation, dogs, matthew vanvoorhis

Building Company Realizes That Threatening A Blogger With Bogus Libel Suit Was A Bad Idea; Sincerely Apologizes

from the you-don't-see-this-very-often dept

For years, we've covered stories of companies reacting badly to finding something they don't like about themselves online, and threatening to sue those who posted the content with libel. Many lawyers tend to go to extremes in threatening people, with the idea of scaring them into just taking content down. These days, of course, that's quite likely to backfire, as the recipient can just go public with it, and shame the company. Even so, it's rare for those companies to come out with a really sincere apology. Aaron DeOliveira points us to an interesting story involving a building company, Guardian Building Products, that freaked out over a blog that showed "a lousy installation" of their insulation. The company threatened to sue, saying that the blog post "constitute[s] libel, slander and commercial disparagement." In response, the blogger, Dr. Allison Bailes, went public with the threat.

And here's where Guardian realized that perhaps it was doing something really, really wrong. It sent a very apologetic letter: While you can (reasonably) argue that the company should have known better than to send the original threat letter, there is something to be said for owning up to the fact that you made a big mistake, and (hopefully) actually learning from it.

Filed Under: apologies, defamation, streisand effect
Companies: guardian

MPAA Helped Police Seize 'Pirated' DVDs That Were Actually Fully Authorized

from the expect-more-like-this dept

Here's a story that touches on a few different issues of importance around these parts. We'll get to the details of the legal ruling in a bit, but the background is really the key part. At the beginning of 2009, a company in Valencia, California, called L&M Optical Disc West, received an order from an authorized partner of the producers of the film Milk to manufacture the DVDs of the film. They began doing exactly that. On February 2nd, as part of a supposedly unrelated police raid, police saw those DVDs and found them "suspicious." They rang up the MPAA who sent over an "investigator," who falsely declared that the DVDs were unauthorized, leading the police to seize them (though, oddly, allowing the private investigation firm to hold them) and to declare to the press that they had found "pirated" DVDs of Milk. This happened despite multiple attempts by L&M staff to explain that they had a legitimate order, even offering to show the "investigator" the details of the order.

The following day, L&M provided the police with all of the evidence that they were authorized to make those DVDs, and the police sergeant told L&M's owner that the DVDs could not be released because they were "pirated." From there, a bunch of press stories followed, with the police repeatedly telling the press that L&M was being investigated for such "piracy," even after the MPAA and the police realized that the DVDs were, in fact, authorized. Months later, however, the press was still quoting the police as saying that L&M was "under investigation" for "piracy."

Because of all of this, L&M claims that customers canceled jobs with L&M and past customers chose to find new partners. It also meant that other vendors who used to send "overflow" work to L&M no longer did so. It effectively dried up much of L&M's business.

If this all seems pretty horrifying, think of how much worse this kind of situation may be about to get. First off, just a few weeks ago, we noted that Governor Jerry Brown in California passed a law that would let law enforcement do more of these kinds of raids but they no longer need a warrant to do so. Yes, despite this massive failure on such a raid, the government now has even more authority to do these kinds of raids, and the MPAA can continue to get away with providing bogus information and effectively killing businesses.

Take it one step further: this is the reason why so many of us are so worried about the new E-PARASITE bill. The MPAA and other copyright holders have a dreadful history and reputation for being inaccurate when it comes to accusing others of infringement. Yet, under E-PARASITE, they get to kill sites dead, without any recourse, before anyone even looks to see if the copyright holder's claim is legit. Doesn't that seem the least bit problematic?

Now, as for the actual case at hand, for which you can read the full decision (pdf and embedded below), it involved the court tossing out a lawsuit by L&M against the MPAA over all of this, using California's anti-SLAPP laws. We're big fans of California's anti-SLAPP laws, and while we find the MPAA's conduct in this situation reprehensible, the ruling actually makes sense. The comments that were the most problematic to L&M in the newspaper reports were not, in fact, made by the MPAA but by the police. If anyone is responsible, it should be the police who made them.

L&M tries to place liability on the MPAA by claiming that the police and the MPAA had a "joint venture" going in these raids, but that isn't supported by the facts. This raid wasn't done at the request of the MPAA, and originally had nothing to do with copyright at all. So, we agree that blaming the MPAA for the comments in the press is improper, as it's misapplied third party liability. Of course, there does seem to be a bit of irony in the fact that the MPAA appears to be working overtime to increase third party liability by undermining the kinds of safe harbors that protect a party from being blamed for the speech of others. However, it's no surprise at all that the MPAA is -- yet again -- too clueless to recognize how its actions undermine its own legal protections elsewhere.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, anti-slapp, defamation, dvds, e-parasite, infringement
Companies: l&m optical disc west, mpaa

UK Parliament Recommends Websites Be Liable For Anonymous Comments If They Won't Reveal Identities

from the privacy? dept

Last month we wrote about a ridiculous policy suggestion by a US lawyer who thought it would be a good idea to make websites liable for anonymous comments, if they don't reveal who posted the info. We thought this was just some crazy "out there" idea that wasn't getting serious consideration anywhere. Tragically, that appears to be false. A UK parliamentary committee is suggesting that a good policy would be that websites need to reveal the identity of anonymous posters, or be liable for what's in those comments. Think of it as the opposite idea of Section 230 of the CDA in the US. Whereas Section 230 protected websites from being liable for the speech of their users, it seems like the UK would like to go in the other direction... and is cluelessly blaming anonymity in the process.

The full proposal is a bit more involved, and seems to have some good ideas, including reducing the ridiculously high cost of libel lawsuits in the UK. It also notes that UK law already makes it such that websites can be liable for user comments, so they actually see this proposal as an improvement. It would require that any site hosting a comment that people complain about also post the complaint near the original comment. But if the comment is anonymous, the site needs to remove the comment immediately or face liability. They try to deal with the situation in which someone has a good reason for being anonymous by suggesting that a website could apply for a "leave up" order from the court. But, of course, that shifts the burden to the websites, many of which will just take the speech down or identify the user.

Like so many others these days, this report appears to confuse the fact that some people do obnoxious things while anonymous with the idea that anonymity is the problem.

The committee criticises comments made anonymously, which it says "may encourage free speech but it also discourages responsibility" and sets out moves it hopes will lead to a "cultural shift towards a general recognition that unidentified postings are not to be treated as true, reliable or trustworthy".

You know what discourages responsibility? When you get to pin liability on a third party who didn't create the content in the first place.

Filed Under: anonymity, defamation, free speech, liability, uk

Canadian Supreme Court Says No Liability For Linking To Defamatory Content

from the link-away dept

You may recall the story of Wayne Crookes, a Canadian with ties to the Green Party and, apparently, rather thin skin. He was upset about some comments made about him on various websites and decided to sue all sorts of people and companies -- including Google, Wikipedia and others. Many of those were dismissed over jurisdictional issues, but he also sued Jon Newton, the operator of P2Pnet.net for merely linking to some of the posts that Crookes was so upset about. Newton fought back. In 2008, a district court ruled that merely linking to defamatory content is not defamatory. That ruling was appealed. In 2009, an appeals court agreed, again reiterating to Crookes that linking is not defamatory. And yet, that ruling was appealed again, and the Canadian Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

In a ruling this morning, the Supreme Court, once again, explained to Crookes that linking to defamatory content is not, by itself, defamatory. As the court states:

I would conclude that a hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers.

Going into more detail:

Hyperlinks are, in essence, references. By clicking on the link, readers are directed to other sources. Hyperlinks may be inserted with or without the knowledge of the operator of the site containing the secondary article. Because the content of the secondary article is often produced by someone other than the person who inserted the hyperlink in the primary article, the content on the other end of the link can be changed at any time by whoever controls the secondary page. Although the primary author controls whether there is a hyperlink and what article that word or phrase is linked to, inserting a hyperlink gives the primary author no control over the content in the secondary article to which he or she has linked....

Hyperlinks thus share the same relationship with the content to which they refer as do references. Both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. And they both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content. The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content neutral - it expresses no opinion, nor does it have any control over, the content to which it refers.

As Michael Geist highlights at the link above, the Court goes above and beyond just explaining why hyperlinks don't represent defamation, but also explains how this is fundamental to a functioning internet and the concept of free speech.

The Internet’s capacity to disseminate information has been described by this Court as “one of the great innovations of the information age” whose “use should be facilitated rather than discouraged”. Hyperlinks, in particular, are an indispensable part of its operation...The Internet cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks. Limiting their usefulness by subjecting them to the traditional publication rule would have the effect of seriously restricting the flow of information and, as a result, freedom of expression. The potential “chill” in how the Internet functions could be devastating, since primary article authors would unlikely want to risk liability for linking to another article over whose changeable content they have no control. Given the core significance of the role of hyperlinking to the Internet, we risk impairing its whole functioning. Strict application of the publication rule in these circumstances would be like trying to fit a square archaic peg into the hexagonal hole of modernity.

Geist also wonders if this ruling might be expanded to cover other forms of third party liability around linking. As we've seen in the US and elsewhere, governments (and the entertainment industry) are keen to pin liability for merely linking to infringing content. While this case doesn't directly discuss infringement, if you were to take the words of the ruling and substitute in copyright, it seems like the same basic concepts should apply.

Filed Under: canada, defamation, jon newton, liability, links, supreme court, wayne crookes

Confused Indian Anti-Piracy Group Asks Us To Remove Article It Doesn't Like From Some Other Blog

from the try-again-guys dept

Well, this is bizarre. A few hours ago, we received an email to our copyright notice email address from Aiplex, an Indian anti-piracy/SEO/medical transcription company. You may remember the company because we wrote a short post about them over a year ago, when its CEO said in an interview that it would resort to denial of service attacks on sites that didn't cooperate. We also noted that the somewhat confused company listed "Bram Cohen" as a type of BitTorrent client.

Anyway, I'd nearly forgotten about the company until we got this email. But the email is asking us to take down the post. Except, it's not. Rather than asking that we remove our post, it actually asks us to remove a copy of the post on a spam blog that appears to copy every Techdirt post (there are a bunch of sites out there that do this and get no traffic -- it makes no sense to us, but they're free to use our content that way, if they want). Here's the email:

This has reference to the below article on your webpage, we kindly request you to deactivate the link as the article is defaming the company’s image & its prospects. It was mis-interpreted by the news agency which was blown out of proportion by some of the pirates across the globe. And subsequently we have to face damages/threats from the pirates & undergo immense losses due to their attack on our servers/websites etc.

Although, we did declare that we are not involved in any of those activities as published in the article, we still have to face the consequences for reasons unknown.

Below is the link for your reference:

http://www.phphosts.org/blog/2010/09/bizarre-indian-anti-piracy-group-says-it-does-dos-attacks-on-file-sharing-operations/

We kindly request you to deactivate at the earliest possible please.

Appreciate your help on this matter.

Jagadish
Support Operations
Aiplex Software Pvt. Ltd.

Interesting stuff. First of all, they used our copyright notification email, and this issue has nothing to do with copyright. Second, they are asking us to remove our content from a site that is not ours, and which we have no control over. The content did, certainly, originate from our site, but they don't ask us to remove the content on our site. This does not speak highly of their technical skills, let alone their basic understanding of this World Wide Web we live on. Finally, as to the claim that this is "defaming," the article directly quotes the company's CEO.

Anyway, seeing as we don't control the web page they've asked us to take down, we obviously won't be doing a damn thing about it, other than to publish this post and hope that, sometime in the future, Aiplex learns a little bit about how the web works.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, defamation, india
Companies: aiplex

Soldier Who Claimed 'Hurt Locker' Must Be About Him SLAPPed Down

from the you're-so-vain,-you-think-this-hurt-locker-is-about-you dept

While we still think the producers of the movie Hurt Locker are crazy for trying to sue thousands of people who downloaded their movie, we certainly supported their position in a different legal fight. In early 2010, a soldier named Jeffrey Sarver sued, claiming that the movie was based on his life. Of course, as we noted at the time, it's not illegal to make a movie based on someone's life without their permission, but he tried to argue that the movie violated certain "ground rules" that were agreed to before he was interviewed by the screenwriter. We also found it amusing that, not only did he claim that the movie was about him, he also claimed "defamation" saying that the movie portrayed him in a false light. I still have trouble seeing how both could be the case. If they accurately portray him, it's illegal... but if they don't accurately portray him, it's defamation?

Either way, the case has not survived its own hurt locker. Using California's anti-SLAPP law, the judge made quick work dismissing the case. The judge noted that the movie was protected by the First Amendment, and the lawsuit was an attempt to silence that. Separately, it found little chance that the guy would prevail on a publicity rights claim, because "no reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the work was not transformative," since the movie character was, in fact, quite different from the actual guy. As for the defamation claim, the court dumped those, noting that the movie is fiction and not about the guy... but even if it were the movie probably wasn't defamatory:

The Court agrees with Defendants that the movie is sufficiently transformative such that Plaintiff’s defamation claim is barred. Further, Will James is not Plaintiff’s name, and the beginning of the film contains a specific disclaimer that the film is a work of fiction. (Hurt Locker Motion at 15.) However, even assuming, arguendo, that a reasonable viewer would believe the movie is about Plaintiff, he has nevertheless failed to present sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case that the depictions of him are false.

The judge says that Sarver's complaints that the movie portrays him as a bad father and having no respect or compassion for human life, don't rise to the level of defamation. In fact, in what may be a bit of film criticism by the judge, the various claims are disputed, saying that the character of Will James in the film does appear to care about his son, does have compassion and was not "fascinated with war and death." It also notes that the evidence suggests that Sarver was pretty fascinated by his job in the war, so even if the movie character was portrayed that way, it wouldn't be defamation.

There were a few other charges in the lawsuit, and each one was dismissed with ease. In fact, things were so against Server that the judge has now ordered him to pay the legal fees of the movie's producers. Nice to see a little common sense pushback for people being overly aggressive in claiming rights they don't have.

Filed Under: defamation, free speech, hurt locker, jeffrey sarver, publicity rights
Companies: voltage pictures

Arthur Alan Wolk Settles Lawsuits With Various Sites

from the and-so-it-goes dept

You may recall that famed aviation lawyer Arthur Alan Wolk had sued a bunch of parties, suggesting that their discussions about an earlier defamation lawsuit against him were against the law. Specifically, Wolk had filed a defamation lawsuit against Overlawyered.com, which was later deemed by the court to have been filed past the statute of limitations. Wolk later claimed this judgment was in error because Overlawyered had changed its blogging software, which he believed reset the clock. After we wrote about all of this and after a court reiterated that the change in blogging software did not change its original ruling, Wolk also promised to sue us if we did not "correct" our post. Instead, we posted a direct reply to Wolk (at that link)... and never heard from him again.

It appears that Wolk and at least some of those he's sued have now come to various settlements. The Reason Foundation has announced that it has settled the lawsuit Wolk filed against it:

On August 1, Wolk dropped his Pennsylvania complaint, and on the same day he filed a similar one in California, where the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit organization that publishes Reason magazine and this website, is based. On August 12 he dropped the California complaint as well, and he recently agreed to a resolution consisting of mutual releases in which he promises not to sue us again for our past posts and we promise not to sue him over his litigation so far. That's about as good an outcome as we could have reasonably expected, since the main issue for us all along has been maintaining the freedom to report and comment on issues of public concern. We are glad the litigation is over and grateful to Gayle Sproul for her patient, able, and indefatigable assistance in achieving that end.

Overlaywered.com has also settled with Wolk, and placed the following statement on its site -- though not in a blog post:

Arthur Alan Wolk, Esquire, Walter K. Olson, David M. Nieporent, Esquire and Overlawyered.com agreed to settle Wolk's longstanding libel claims against Overlawyered.com, et al.

The parties agreed to dismiss with prejudice all litigation pending between them and also agreed to release each other from all claims. Overlawyered.com removed from its web site certain posts about Wolk that led to the case as well as other posts that commented on the case's dismissal by the Court last August. Wolk removed from his web site a post he wrote about Overlawyered.com.

Upon submission of materials to Overlawyered.com in the litigation, Overlawyered learned that Wolk took protections for his clients in the Taylor v. Teledyne case.

With the release of this statement, Overlawyered.com and Wolk will have nothing further to say on these matters and ask all others on the internet to take down their posts concerning this dispute since the controversy now has been settled on an amicable basis and should be laid to rest.

The Reason post, on the other hand, notes that just because the case has been settled, it "does not mean it never happened, so we are keeping our original posts and adding a link to the joint statement by Overlawyered.com and Wolk." Similarly, we don't believe that there is any benefit to taking down factual posts on historical events, even if they ended in an out-of-court settlement. In fact, we're a bit disappointed that Overlawyered would agree to take down historical posts without a court-ordered reason to do so. Meanwhile, the Reason blog notes that because it does "not want to see any further lawsuits filed as a result of comments on our site," it was disabling comments on that post.

We will neither remove historical posts nor disable comments. As we noted in our last post on Mr. Wolk's email to us, we believe his intent in these lawsuits and threats was to silence people from talking about him -- and we do not intend to be silenced by such threats when they do not appear credible to us.

Filed Under: arthur alan wolk, conspiracy, defamation, overlawyered, reason

Redskins Owner Dan Synder Realizes He Was Going To Lose His Defamation Lawsuit Badly, Drops It

from the that's-what-we-call-a-punt dept

Remember Dan Snyder? The much-maligned owner of the Washington Redskins who sued a small newspaper for running a clearly satirical article about him? The same owner of the Washington Redskins who also argued that a picture of him accompanying that article that added scribbled devil horns and goatee was somehow antisemitic? The lawsuit alone massively increased attention to the article and its jokes about Snyder. Just last week, even Snyder finally admitted that it was "possibly" a tactical error to sue.

Well, Verve lets us know that Snyder has finally dropped the lawsuit, most likely because someone finally explained to him that he had almost no chance of winning, and not only would he lose in court, but the longer the case went on, the worse the public relations nightmare would be. It's pretty funny that he's claiming that he's doing this "to focus on the coming football season and the business at hand." Yeah, and not losing massively in court, for which you might have had to pay Washington City Paper's legal fees as well.

Amusingly, Snyder also declares -- against pretty much all evidence -- that he's been "vindicated" in filing the lawsuit, because Washington City Paper:

"admitted that certain assertions contained in the article that are the subject of the lawsuit were, in fact, unintended by the defendants to be read literally as true."

Um. That's not vindication of the lawsuit. That's WCP explaining what everyone else in the world already knew: the article was satire, designed to make fun of Snyder. Saying that the points weren't all meant to be read literally as true isn't an admission. It's pointing out that Snyder is apparently unable to comprehend basic satire.

WCP, for its part, says that it's happy the case has been dismissed, and while it could use DC anti-SLAPP laws to go after legal fees, it'd rather the case just be over. Of course, one good thing about all this happening in Washington DC? It's really helped some folks in Congress realize that we need a federal anti-SLAPP law.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, dan snyder, defamation, redskins, washington city paper
Companies: washington city paper, washington redskins