Web operators must disclose details of serious libel writers

The high court will only force Web site owners to reveal the identities of anonymous contributors to blogs etc if the material is a serious libel. Material which is “barely defamatory, or little more than abusive or likely to be understood as jokes” does not warrant disclosure, the High Court ruled last week.

Contributors to Web sites using a pseudonym have a right to privacy, the Court has ruled. Their identity is also protected by the Data Protection Act.

The chairman and six directors of Sheffield Wednesday football club, along with the club itself, took an action against the owner and operator of owlstalk a Wednesday's fan site.

They wanted the identities of people who had posted 14 items on owlstalk to be revealed by Hargreaves. Hargreaves asked the court to decide who should be revealed.

Owlstalk has T&Cs which say that no posts should be knowingly false and/or defamatory. Posts written by halfpint, DJ Mortimer, xdanielx, Ian, Auckland Owl, Foot 04, Southy, paulrs, and dansky are defamatory of the claimants, they argued.

The judge ruled that he would not order Hargreaves to reveal the identity of the authors of nine of the postings. To do so would be “disappropriate and unjustifiably intrusive, because the material was not sufficiently libellous”.

One posting was only defamatory “by devising a frankly implausable meaning”. Another was “barely if at all defamatory”. Another two were “plainly intended as jokes and unlikely to be taken seriously.”

Another four were “saloon bar moanings about the way in which the club is managed .” Some had “a smidgeon of personal abuse...most unlikely to be taken seriously.” The final one was “mildly abusive and is fairly plainly comment”.

But the identities of halfpint, Ian, Vaughan and DJ Mortimer must be disclosed. Some of their postings “may reasonably be understood to argue greed, selfishness, untrustworthiness and dishonest behaviour.”

The ones that got away

These are some of the postings which slipped through the net:

“Is this more evidence that Dave Allen is nothing more than a skinflint? Even the agents can't get anything from him.”

“Whenever we are linked with signing anyone remotely good/expensive we just create paper talk for a few days then repeat numerous times until getting someone in on a loan.”

“The club's best players are being given away, endless broken promises and the chairman with the most acute Napoleon complex allegedly that I've personally ever seen.”

“All this transfer rumour is just pathetic. We all know this is made to take some pressure off 'u know who' after the stupid comments he made.”

“...increased ticket prices, where the fook has this money gone (ohh BTW I saw Dave Allen getting measured up for a new suit the other day, he especially requested bigger pockets).”

“I still can't believe the way the Brunt situation is being handled by the numpties at our club....If someone can come on here as explain why this is anything that crass incompetence, I'd like to hear it.”

It seems then that calling people numpties and skinflints is OK.

If you can't as a fan call the directors, in addition, greedy, selfish, untrustworthy and dishonest what is the English football fan to do? Watch the foorball.

McCanns go for retaliation first

The McCanns, you must know them if not where their Maddy is, have hired lawyers. And those lawyers are tasked to warn the media not to suggest they drugged their children.

Another case of getting retaliation in first. See previous blog.

This amounts to pre-publication censorship.

Not that, I am pleased to say, the McCanns did drug their children.

But still not nice from a couple who need to media to find their child and prove themselves innocent.

Trade mark titles and defend them

Publishers and editors should pay more attention to trade marking their titles. Not only should they look to trade mark them more often than they do, but they also need now to actively defend the trade marks they already have or get in the future.

The rules of trade marking have changed in the UK. The UK Government's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) will no longer refuse a trade mark because it is like an existing one. The original trade mark owner has to object as the application is being made.

In the past the IPO and its predecessors would check that an application for a trade mark did not clash with an existing one. Now the IPO will only check whether the mark could, legally, be registered.

So publishers and editors, or the legal offices of the publisher, need to keep a constant eye on the applications for trade marks and object quickly to any application they think infringes the trade marks they have already registered.

On the other hand, there may be a benefit for the efficient publisher over the sleepy one: the efficient publisher can now register a trade mark which is similar to their competitor if they think the competitor is not paying attention to this rule change.

You have been warned.

Civilian casulties in the copyright war

Advantage to the copyright owners

The advantage in the long guerilla war fought by the copyright owners to protect their property has swung in their favour.

A US woman was fined $222,000 (£111,000) for the 24 songs the copyright owners said she shared illegally, reports The Times.

She was one of the few out of 26,000 people the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued in the past four years to try to defend her case. Most of the others settled almost as soon as the legal heavies of the RIAA sued them.

The copyright owners did not even have to prove that the woman's hands were on the keyboard when the sharing was taking place.

The RIAA is not only going after individuals. It has also hit the file-sharing site Kazaa with a $100 million damages suit which Kazaa paid.

It is indeed a guerilla war. This is not the end of the war at all. It is just another, this time very public, victory for the copyright owners. People and companies who want to use the material they buy through sharing it will continue to do so.

We are not born with a notion of property. We have to be educated in it. So copyright owners are turning to ever younger people to try and educate them in what the copyright owners consider their rights of property. They are now aiming at primary schools in the USA.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has proposed that children from 5 years to 8 should be “educated” in intellectual property (IP). The idea, says the ESA, is to “encourage creativity and respect for IP”. The ESA is pushing for it to be included in the curriculum. It has produced colouring books and projects to get the message over.

The ESA says: “At those ages, children are open to receiving messages, guidelines, rules of the road, if you will, with respect to intellectual property." Presumably the older generations are a lost cause for such an educational initiative. The courts are the best place for them, it seems the copyright owners have concluded.

The next round in the war is the launch of Radiohead's new album this week with its “honesty box” system. That will do little for the single mother in the USA who is likely to be bankrupted by the recording companies' actions. Another civilian victim of the long war by property owners.

It is remarkable how the old arguments are constantly used. Note that the ESA's proposed educational campaign is entitled “encourage creativity and respect for IP”. The “respect for IP” bit comes after the call to encourage creativity. Just as it did in the first copyright act in the world in 1709. It was titled “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.” But the preamble made clear it was all about property. The preamble said a lot of people had been “of late frequently taken the Liberty or printing...” without the consent of the authors or proprietors. This has led “to their [the authors' or proprietors'] very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families.”

It was books and was for 14 years. Now it is a wide range of material as long as 90 years from publication or even 70 years beyond the death of the author. In the long guerilla war the property owners have been the historical winners. But they continue to have to fight their corner or face being overrun by people who want to be creative.