Could you be sued over something you said on Boards.ie?

Biggins · 24-05-2010 04:47PM

Just for defamation clarity:

Slander: oral form of possible untruths
Liable: Allegations made and put into written form or expressed through a media.

BehindTheScenes · 24-05-2010 04:47PM

I'd love to be sued they could have twenty percent of all my assets. What's twenty percent of 0?

Kiith · 24-05-2010 04:49PM

I remember a certain organisation (who i'm still cautious of naming) brought boards.ie up on its users posting their opinions on how utterly **** they were at organising festivals.

We were right in our opinions, and they were douchébags, but it didnt stop them. It did stop boards for a while though.

Amalgam · 24-05-2010 04:51PM

Facebook is interesting, are you not 'putting yourself there', as a user. If you don't like the feedback you're getting from YOUR PROFILE, modify it, or do not use the site.

There have been a few cases going as far back as 1998, in the UK, to do with (personal) defamation on newsgroup postings and through email.

Below is the case that is seen as a 'Landmark' case.

Godfrey v. Demon Internet

http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/defamation2.html

Banned Account · 24-05-2010 04:52PM

Biggins wrote: »

Just for defamation clarity:

Slander: oral form of possible untruths
Liable: Allegations made and put into written form or expressed through a media.

Libel and slander are now obselete really save in some really technical cases. The distinction has its roots in the old divisions of the courts, this morphed over time and there was a belief that as libel is written and recorded, it was capable of doing more damage than the spoken word which was gone as soon as it was uttered.

Broadcasting and recording media have made this distinction null really. Now you can be done for blasphemous libel so if you say something derogatory about Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad etc. you can be sued - despite the fact that the above are all dead (probably - though they might be back for easter eggs)

Sparks · 24-05-2010 04:52PM

ejmaztec wrote: »

a Politics.ie apology seemed to suffice at the last minute.

Interesting - I thought they made a big thing of how, since they were hosted in the US, they weren't subject to Irish libel law, but US libel law?

General Zod · 24-05-2010 04:55PM

Biggins wrote: »

Just for defamation clarity:

Slander: oral form of possible untruths
Liable: Allegations made and put into written form or expressed through a media.

Actually, neither of these two exist in Irish law anymore, it's all under the banner of tort of defamation.

Banned Account · 24-05-2010 04:55PM

Sparks wrote: »

Interesting - I thought they made a big thing of how, since they were hosted in the US, they weren't subject to Irish libel law, but US libel law?

You can sue anywhere that publication has taken place - many complainants choose to sue in Ireland due to the ridiculous awards - see previous post re the O'Brien case - an award referred back to the court for being too high was subsequently trebled by the jury

ScumLord · 24-05-2010 04:56PM

BehindTheScenes wrote: »

I'd love to be sued they could have twenty percent of all my assets. What's twenty percent of 0?

o

Amalgam · 24-05-2010 04:57PM

Isn't it likely that it would be the address (country) of the domain owner in the WHOIS that is liable?

I visit sites where you cannot post Facebook links, because there's a risk of liability in visiting someone's profile.. :rolleyes:

Daemos · 24-05-2010 04:59PM

Kiith wrote: »

I remember a certain organisation (who i'm still cautious of naming) brought boards.ie up on its users posting their opinions on how utterly **** they were at organising festivals.

We were right in our opinions, and they were douchébags, but it didnt stop them. It did stop boards for a while though.

McDonalds?

Banned Account · 24-05-2010 04:59PM

General Zod wrote: »

Actually, neither of these two exist in Irish law anymore, it's all under the banner of tort of defamation.

You are quite right there - since the first of January this year.

starbelgrade · 24-05-2010 05:01PM

Just remember this;

"All types of asses are un-parliamentary"

An Ceann Coamhairle, May 2010

Wibbs · 24-05-2010 05:30PM

It's an interesting one. What will the interweb(especially in Ireland) look like in ten years time because of it? I can see the web becoming more mannerly(which is good and boards has that one sorted for the most part).

I can also see it becoming more restrictive. On all sides. More and more users may clamour for privacy and control over their content from providers. More providers may naturally try to cover and distance themselves from the opinion of the users from a legal standpoint. Heavier editing etc. For forums I can see more paid mods with some legal training. Boards secured a pretty impressive result from the shenanigans a year back. Breathing room for the provider to remove libelous material, whereas I gather(?) before it was more "it was posted therefore you're done" Now its "it was posted, we were alerted and removed it". Important move forward. Kudos there.

Control of content may become an issue. Because after all its the content that's sueable(:o) The photography forum had some questions about posting their photo content on that forum. Again that was sorted and again kudos

Now in the case of a photo thats obvious content. Or a short story in the creative writing forum. I presume if I obviously plagerise a work I could be sued.

Where it gets more tricky are the posts themselves. They're content. They make up 99.9% of the content on a forum. Now boards (rightfully) won't delete a user, or their posts if requested(unless its one or two posts that people think better of later). To do so could ruin a forum and any thread they were in. Big work for a mod too as they would have to remove all the quoted posts too. Now lets imagine the Legal forum(since we're in the area:)). Further imagine one of the regular posters in the future, say a mod has written many many posts on legal matters(not advice of course). Posts that enlightened entertained etc. Now imagine they want to leave for whatever reason and they wish to remove what after all is their content and collate it in a book or something, what could happen there? Especially if they left under a cloud.

The above are my worries if "legal" gets thrown into the mix too much. I hope sense prevails with our lawmakers and good precedents are set(like in the Boards *** example).

nyarlothothep · 24-05-2010 05:34PM

dermot ahern is an authoritarian, I hope he is removed from office at some point. However it is a complex issue but Im suspect about the intention behind his remark.

PK2008 · 24-05-2010 05:46PM

We're in the golden age of the internet where you can say whatever you want with anonymity. It wont last though, in 10-20 years time we'll look back and remember how cool it was to be an internet user during this time.

A bit like the way people look back at the 60's

Mac daddy · 24-05-2010 05:59PM

PK2008 wrote: »

We're in the golden age of the internet where you can say whatever you want with anonymity. It wont last though, in 10-20 years time we'll look back and remember how cool it was to be an internet user during this time.

A bit like the way people look back at the 60's

The internet police are watching you

Soon you won't be able to say anything, pay for using it(not your ISP charges) and being constantly monitored.

mike65 · 24-05-2010 06:09PM

Just heard Daragh on The Last Word (Matt Coopers show on TodayFM).

I remember a certain organisation (who i'm still cautious of naming) brought boards.ie up on its users posting their opinions on how utterly **** they were at organising festivals.

We were right in our opinions, and they were douchébags, but it didnt stop them. It did stop boards for a while though.

MDF?

Kasabian · 24-05-2010 06:16PM

brummytom wrote: »

The following people are homosexual: David Cameron, Nick Clegg, the whole of the British Cabinet, Trevor McDonald, Mary McAleese, George Murphy, all members of Birmingham City Football Club, Al Murray, David Beckham, Simon Cowell, Gordon Ramsey, Piers Morgan, Brad Pitt, Brian Cowen.

Bring it

Oii leave Mary out of this

Kiith · 24-05-2010 06:21PM

I personally think its redicilous that someone can be sued over something that might be said on boards. Surely no one takes anything here seriously.

Then again, After Hours is serious business...

mike65 wrote: »

MDF?

I'm obviously talking about the Municipal Corporation of Delhi :rolleyes:

billymitchell · 24-05-2010 06:24PM

Kiith wrote: »

I'm obviously talking about the Municipal Corporation of Delhi :rolleyes:

gah, just beat me too it!!!

jimi_t2 · 24-05-2010 06:44PM

Free speech is not protected in this country whatsoever. There's a lot of big fish in a little pond who like to throw their weight about and are used to the government and small businesses just rolling over. Its a far more dangerous situation in the UK however. Other countries and individuals are now trying cases in London due to their incredibly archaic slander and libel laws.

e.g.; The US, where free-speech is a fundamental tenant of their constitution. In the case of the whistle blower site WikiLeaks, Some cayman island bank got an expediated court order blocking the DNS from referring to the site - this was all done in about 8 hours and the ISP rolled over for the court before they even heard that this was happening. It effectively meant that the site was inaccessible for all but the most technical users, but they've the site mirrored in about 20 jurisdictions including christmas island! http://wikileaks.org/

Kiith wrote: »

I'm obviously talking about the Municipal Corporation of Delhi :rolleyes:

But yeah, it really just goes to show, even if you have photographic and/or video evidence, any so called ''free'' media outlet or discussion forum can be bullied into submission by someone with money. Suppose we're used to it after generations of supression by legions of paedophile clergy.

Pretty sure a national paper or two were in the same boat over that one. Only a matter of time before indymedia are levelled into the ground for posting up photos of something that someone high up needed supressed.

Fecking indian corpos - who do they think they are!

RMD · 24-05-2010 06:47PM

Theoretically you can be sued, it's a very weak case though as there's no actual proof it was you using your account to post it, may have been hacked, someone used it after you left it logged in etc. Very little evidence to go on.

AFAIK it's actually boards which is ultimately held responsible. Like how it's not the journalist who is sued, it's the newspaper.

jimi_t2 · 24-05-2010 06:54PM

Sorry, a little OT, but just to show how absolutely outrageous our courts are - IP addressed do not constitute priviliged information when they're in the hands of the IRMA. Lovely.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/24/irelands-largest-isp.html

Eircom, Ireland's largest ISP, has decided to snuffle up to the entertainment industry's hindquarters and become the first European ISP to actively practice "3 strikes": if you are accused (without proof) of three acts of copyright infringement, they will take away Internet access from your entire household for a year.

Ireland is the first country in the world where a system of "graduated response" is being put in place. Under the pilot scheme, Eircom customers who illegally share copyrighted music will get three warnings before having their broadband service cut off for a year.

The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma), whose members include EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, reached an out-of-court settlement with Eircom in February 2009 under which the telecoms company agreed to introduce such a system for its 750,000 broadband users.

IRMA's last case? To shut down a site that SOLD CD's (CDWOW)

The parallel crowd in the US have been happily sueing grannies for supposedly downloading gangster rap, sueing dead people, sueing people who have no computers... This is an extremely serious precedent to set.

As a poster points out

This is not a law, it is a private arrangement, part of an out-of-court settlement between Eircom and the Irish Recorded Music Ass. Those who face disconnection will not have the opportunity to confront their accusers before a judge unless they take civil action themselves. It is, in essence, an end-run around the legal system that requires minimum effort on the part of the recording industry with maximum impact on Irish internet users.

IRMA have a contract with a company called DtecNet to monitor file sharing networks for Irish users and provide IP addresses for further action. This means they are not going to be accepting legal notices from anyone else and are not going to be tricked into disconnecting the Taoiseach any time soon.

The disconnection periods seem to be confused at the moment; it's being reported as anywhere between one month and indefinite.

There are three major players in the Irish BB market: Eircom, UPC and BT/Vodafone, with Eircom being the largest. IRMA are already on their way to court with UPC to try for the same deal again. If those last two fall no one else has the resources to stand and fight. From that point on the recording industry will own the entire Irish broadband network.

Whats that going to be like for free speech?

Don't like the latest Snow Patrol album and are a tad vocal saying as much? Bye bye broadband

The next logical step is for them to start trying to charge google for media transfer, just as the ISPs in the UK have tried to do with the BBC and C4 on-demand video services. Unfortunately, whereas the BBC and them basically told the ISPs to **** off, we can't do that. I can't see youtube or any of that ilk lasting long.

Nodin · 24-05-2010 07:08PM

brummytom wrote: »

Is there a difference?

Apparently the Protestants are less given to dancing.

CrazyRabbit · 24-05-2010 07:16PM

The first person here to mention me and those goats again is getting sued!

Daemos · 24-05-2010 07:26PM

CrazyRabbit + goats = goabbits

Erica<3 · 24-05-2010 07:28PM

Public forum, so yeah, freedom of speech. As long as it's true, but that in it's self is a catch 22 as not a lot of people use their real names as user names and unless you start tracking IPs there's no real way of validating statements.

jimi_t2 · 24-05-2010 07:29PM

Erica<3 wrote: »

Public forum, so yeah, freedom of speech. As long as it's true, but that in it's self is a catch 22 as not a lot of people use their real names as user names and unless you start tracking IPs there's no real way of validating statements.

IPs have now been ruled not to constitute priviliged information.

So no, no freedom of speech whatsoever.

Blasphemy Law. Nuff said.

24-05-2010 07:36PM

Darragh wrote: »

Should you have the freedom to say what you want about companies and people, as long as it's true?

Darragh

It isnt defamation if its true

Could you be sued over something you said on Boards.ie?

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