CMLP International Blog

Could Britain finally be moving to shed its unflattering title of "libel capital of the world"?  

We can only hope, of course, but it does appear to be edging that way, thanks to a recent High Court decision to toss a textbook "libel tourism" case.  In the case, Out-law.com reports that Mr. Justice Tugendhat threw out the claims brought by Zimbabwe-oriented investment firm LonZim and two executives against Andrew Sprague, who criticized the company on the website of a South African magazine in May 2009.  The plaintiffs alleged that Sprague's article false accused them of "cynically and greedily indulg[ing] in self-enrichment at the expense of, and contrary to the interests of, shareholders."

LonZim argued that "a significant proportion" of the South African magazine's traffic was from England and Wales, the High Court's jurisdiction.  But in a departure from some of the more objectionable British libel decisions — like the case against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, which founded jurisdiction on 23 copies sold in the UK on Amazon — Tugendhat held LonZim's feet to the fire and required it to prove that this was the case.  And LonZim couldn't make the requisite showing:

Sprague presented evidence of traffic figures from the website for the two months following the date of first publication. The publishers had recorded a total of 65 visits for the contentious article.   read more »

First Amendment juggernaut Marc Randazza is having a very good week.  On Wednesday, Professor Donald Marvin Jones a/k/a the "Nutty Professor" voluntarily dismissed his invasion of privacy lawsuit against Randazza's client Above the Law.  Today, word comes that WIPO Arbitration Panelist Frederick M. Abbot has denied Glenn Beck's UDRP complaint against another Randazza client, Isaac Eiland-Hall, the man behind glennbeckrapedandmurdereda younggirlin1990.com.  (See our previous posts here and here.)

In the decision (pdf), Panelist Abbot ruled that Eiland-Hall's domain name was a "legitimate noncommercial or fair use of [Beck's] mark,"  dooming Beck's claim:   read more »

It's tough being a publisher these days.  Of course, no one is having much fun in the current economic downturn, but publishers were up against it even before the slowdown.  Circulations have been down across the board for years now, which in turn has slashed the advertising revenues that print publications have always relied upon to survive.  It's just a bad time to be publishing newspapers and magazines, at least while using the classical publishing business model.

Well, Germany's recently formed government believes they may have a solution to the woes of German publishers: a new kind of copyright.  The New York Times reports that the incoming German government has proposed a new kind of "neighboring right" (i.e., "ancillary copyright" or Leistungsschutzrecht), along the lines of those already enjoyed by movie and music publishers in Europe, to stymie the unauthorized use of published works by for-profit websites:

Details of how the proposal would work have not been spelled out, but publishing executives say one possibility would be to require a license for any commercial use of published material online. That might include Web sites that post articles from other sources, assuming they sell advertising.

A new agency, modeled on the music and book industries’ royalty collection societies, could be created to gather and distribute the fees, publishing executives add.   read more »

Last week was a tough one for Internet users worldwide. On the foreign front, the French (as predicted) reinstituted a due-process-shattering law that allows ISPs to kick suspected file-sharers off the Internet.  On the domestic side, a district court refused to lift a government gag order, preventing ISPs from discussing the FBI’s Internet snooping. Separately, each of these events is a bummer, but taken together they threaten the Internet as we know it by inviting abuse from both private industry and government.

As you may recall, the French government (with a little encouragement from the entertainment industry) has previously attempted to do away with the entire notion of due process vis-à-vis the Internet. The HADOPI law would have allowed ISP’s to strip Internet access from users who were accused of file sharing. The French Socialist party challenged the law, arguing that access to the Internet was a basic right that could not be violated without judicial oversight. The Conseil Constitutionnel agreed and declared the banning provision unconstitutional.   read more »

Last week was a tough one for Internet users worldwide. On the foreign front, the French (as predicted) reinstituted a due-process-shattering law that allows ISPs to kick suspected file-sharers off the Internet.  On the domestic side, a district court refused to lift a government gag order, preventing ISPs from discussing the FBI’s Internet snooping. Separately, each of these events is a bummer, but taken together they threaten the Internet as we know it by inviting abuse from both private industry and government.

As you may recall, the French government (with a little encouragement from the entertainment industry) has previously attempted to do away with the entire notion of due process vis-à-vis the Internet. The HADOPI law would have allowed ISP’s to strip Internet access from users who were accused of file sharing. The French Socialist party challenged the law, arguing that access to the Internet was a basic right that could not be violated without judicial oversight. The Conseil Constitutionnel agreed and declared the banning provision unconstitutional.   read more »

A lot of ink and pixels have been spilled on predictions about how technology and social media will change the world.  But the new technologies still have their skeptics (with some even going so far as to compare Twitter to the Macarena).  Last week in Mexico City, the Alliance of Youth Movements convened a group of international activists, government officials, academics, journalists, and representatives of new media companies for three days of discussions seeking to prove the skeptics wrong.

The Second Annual Alliance of Youth Movements Summit sought "to explore ways to advance grassroots movements seeking positive social change through 21st century technology and tools." A quick glance at the list of conference sponsors reads a bit like a Who's Who of old-media meets new-media: the U.S. Department of State, Facebook, Hi5, Google, MySpace, Gen Next, Howcast Media, MTV, PepsiCo, Mobile Behavior, Univisión, Interactive Media, Inc., Causecast.org, WordPress.com, Edelman, and YouTube.  read more »

We reported earlier this month that Glenn Beck filed a UDRP action against glennbeckrapedandmurdereda younggirlin1990.com seeking transfer of the domain name.  Beck alleges that the website, which instantiates an Internet meme born on Fark.com that pokes fun at Beck's rhetorical style, is improperly using his trademarked name.  This week, First Amendment bad ass Marc Randazza filed a response brief on behalf of Isaac Eiland-Hall, the previously anonymous individual behind the site.

As you might imagine, Mr. Eiland-Hall is not taking this whole thing lying down (from the brief):   read more »

A basic lesson of history: a spoonful of cute helps the social medicine go down.

Bert the Turtle prepared us for Global Thermo-Nuclear War. Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck helped us hate the Nazis and (briefly) like Stalin. Now Google has harnessed the power of cute to sell Google Street View.  I think the approach will work in Japan and America, for Europe I’m not so sure.   read more »

A basic lesson of history: a spoonful of cute helps the social medicine go down.

Bert the Turtle prepared us for Global Thermo-Nuclear War. Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck helped us hate the Nazis and (briefly) like Stalin. Now Google has harnessed the power of cute to sell Google Street View.  I think the approach will work in Japan and America, for Europe I’m not so sure.   read more »

IP Osgoode alerts us to an interesting decision from the Court of Appeal for British Columbia that has important implications for online speech in Canada.  In an opinion issued earlier this month, the Canadian court held that Jon Newton of p2pnet news could not be held liable for linking to allegedly defamatory articles written by others about politician Wayne Crookes. The appellate ruling upheld a lower court decision last fall dismissing Crookes' case against Newton.

In much the way CMLP often does, in 2006 Newton published a blog post about a defamation lawsuit brought by Crookes against Michael Pilling, who runs OpenPolitics.ca.  In his post about the lawsuit, Newton linked to the allegedly defamatory articles in question on OpenPolitics.ca, as well as to an article posted on another website.  Newton did not reproduce or comment on any of the allegedly defamatory material.  Here's the important passage:   read more »