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p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- I headed this post Wayne Crookes v p2pnet. But maybe I should have called it Wayne Crookes v Ted Nelson because it includes a number of words and phrases highlighted and underlined in blue.
They’re links, the “genius” of the Net.
That’s how well-known Canadian media lawyer Dan Burnett, who’s defending me against defamation charges brought by Vancouver businessman and ex-Green Party of Canada financier Wayne Crookes, describes them.
He wants the Net frozen.
Solid.
Here’s another comment from Burnett in another defamation case in which he’s acting for me, also pro bono:
“For all the lofty quotes about free speech in Canadian jurisprudence, the reality is that our libel laws are the least protective of free speech in the English speaking world.”
Crookes claims I defamed him when I linked to sites containing articles which, well, defamed him, he says.
If he wins, it’ll be quite literally the end of online freedom of speech in Canada.
A ‘navigation element in a document’
Without hyperlinks, the World Wide Web would be nothing but a sterile series of computers loosely connected by urls which would have to be manually keyed in to be accessed.
Enter hyperlinks, a term, “coined in 1965 (or possibly 1964) by Ted Nelson at the start of Project Xanadu. Nelson had been inspired by “As We May Think,” a popular essay by Vannevar Bush,” says the Wikipedia, continuing »»»
In the essay, Bush described a microfilm-based machine (the Memex) in which one could link any two pages of information into a “trail” of related information, and then scroll back and forth among pages in a trail as if they were on a single microfilm reel. The closest contemporary analogy would be to build a list of bookmarks to topically related Web pages and then allow the user to scroll forward and backward through the list.
In a series of books and articles published from 1964 through 1980, Nelson transposed Bush’s concept of automated cross-referencing into the computer context, made it applicable to specific text strings rather than whole pages, generalized it from a local desk-sized machine to a theoretical worldwide computer network, and advocated the creation of such a network. Meanwhile, working independently, a team led by Douglas Engelbart (with Jeff Rulifson as chief programmer) was the first to implement the hyperlink concept for scrolling within a single document (1966), and soon after for connecting between paragraphs within separate documents (1968). See NLS.
Now, in one of the most egregious attacks on freedom of speech, Crookes wants to shut down the Net, and the effectiveness of his approach was amply demonstrated when he first launched his attack on linking.
Canadian media both on- and offline chickened out en masse.
And they’re still conspicuous by the fact they skated around, and continue to skate around, the Crookes attacks, afraid they might find themselves on his (s)hit list.
In Crookes’ sights
To digress a little, for a while it looked as though my trip to the mainland from Vancouver Island, where I live, was to be a waste of time.
Many, if not most, cases slated for summary decision, as ours was, aren’t assigned a judge until the day, and because eight or nine people were before us, it looked as though we wouldn’t be heard.
But just before we went our separate ways, British Columbia Supreme Court judge Stephen Kelleher (a former chair of the Labour Relations Board of BC, among other things) was given our case and so I spent yesterday in Vancouver, listening to lawyer Bob Kasting try to justify his client’s actions.
I’m not alone, however. A lot of other people were, and are, also in Crookes’ sights including, Google.com, Wikipedia.com, Pbwiki.com, Yahoo.com, MySpace.com, Openpolitics.ca, Domains by Proxy, Mike Pilling, Hayley Easto, Kate Holloway, Craig Hubley, Warren De Simone, Frank Cameron, Catharine Johannson, Gareth White and various anonymous persons.
If Keller finds linking isn’t the same as publishing, his decision will lighten the loads on these other defamation cases.
Graffity on a wall
Meanwhile, did I defame Crookes when I linked to a couple of articles he doesn’t like —- in linking, did I in effect become the publisher of those articles?
And in another kind of instance not so far brought up, as far as I know, am I also plagiarizing a news (or any other) article on another site if I link to it?
After all, according to Crookes, in linking, I’m publishing.
It’s far fetched, I know, but nonetheless, with people such as Crookes looking to trammel freedom of speech online ……………..
Kasting dredged up several elderly defamation cases, unrelated to the Net or the 21st digital century, as “instructional,” ie, if one points to graffity on a wall, is one is then “publishing” it? Or, if a company doesn’t take down a poster it knows is defamatory, is it, too, acting as a publisher?
I’ve over-simplified, but in essence, IMHO, that’s how Kasting put them across.
Hurry up and wait
So will Kelleher find these and other cases cited by Kasting relevant?
He can find me guilty, in which case Crookes will want damages, and that’ll be very tough on me and my family.
He can simply dismiss the case saying I didn’t defame Crookes. That would be good for me, but it’d leave Crookes free to continue his freeze on the Net.
Or, Kelleher can rule linking is most definitely not the same as publishing which, if the peoples’ rights are to be respected, is the way he should go.
We’ll have to wait and see because as Burnett predicted, Kelleher reserved his decision, meaning Canada and Canadians won’t know if one man will be allowed to continued his freeze on both the freedom of the net, and freedom of speech in this country, for a while to come.
Because Crookes vs Newton, the first case of its kind in Canada, is quite literally that important.
With the Net still largely uncharted territory, whichever way Kelleher rules, his decision will be cited not only in Canada, but around the world.
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton - linking to you from p2pnet
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August 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I hope the judge bans him from using the net
August 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
^ ^ Yeah, people with thin skins shouldn’t be on the net anyways.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Let us say it is found you are guilty of defamation of Crookes by link, as an example. The only different between a click link and a pasted link into the browser is the users method of activation; click as opposed to copy and paste. So if one is open to defamation, so is the other. Both would lead to a possible site containing this info.
So if this is allowed to be read as defamation, then the internet ceases to be in Canada where this defamation is so widely allowed as a possibility. Surely the judge understands the ramifications and if he doesn’t then the lawyer should make very sure it is brought up in the course of proceedings.
It just doesn’t sound likely that this has a possibility of success, any more than a news article that states Joe Public was busted for some illegal act and stating what that act would be.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Linking is publishing!? Thats right up there with the internet being a series of tubes.
So if say nizkor.org, links to the sites its debunking, it is in fact publishing them… and therefor endorsing them..? Or if xenu.net links to scientology.org, its being hypocritical? They didn’t make those sites (practical definition of publishing) much less endorse them.
A link is just a director. its like he’s arguing, pointing your finger in a direction and saying ‘that way’ is the same as creating and running the place your pointing to. Its absurd. This guy has no case at all.
My head hurts.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I’m a bit curious if any one can say a bit more on the ‘reserved judgement’ thing.
Waiting for possible appeals on other grounds than the verdict isn’t liked?
Not wanting to spoil the other cases up at the same time (if similar, or the fellows other cases are in proccess)?
Waiting for some ‘legal community 2 cents’ to be chipped in?
August 30th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
He should be banned from using the Net under the upcoming “three-strikes rule”.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
1. I thought that in order to “defame” someone, the information posted about them had to be untrue. Was that ever established?
2. Jon, how come you don’t get together with the other defendants and issue a motion to rule these cases as being “similar” thus moving it all under one BIG case. That would be a real win, because then you get the protection of the big boyz’ lawyers! This was what the RIAA was trying to do with their university-student-lawsuit fiasco, in order to save on court processing fees and do less paperwork. In this case however it really is all the same thing…isn’t it? Or is each case different enough that they must be separate?
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Main thing, my case is the only one in which Crookes claims I defamed him via a link. Just that. Nothing else.
Cheers!
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Crookes is an arsehole.
The above sentence is not a link to anything and therefore must be true.
September 17th, 2008 at 5:45 am
If I tell a man that the man across the street says that the he is stupid, does that mean that I think he is stupid?
I think not!
If that were true it would be literally impossible to even create a case on defamation, as creating the case forces one to point out or “link to,” the defamatory statement, thus being defamatory against oneself, or, under the assumption that that makes him a publisher, agree with the defamation, therefore not making it defamatory at all.
IE
I link to an article that says I am stupid in order to bring this to court as a defamatory article. In the process of linking/gathering the information that says I am stupid, I become the publisher of the article that says I am stupid. Therefore, since I published the article, I must agree with my publication, “I am stupid,” and so I cannot say that that is defamatory against me, for to do so would be to say that I am defamatory to myself. QED
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
This is so ludicrous.
All Canadians should then sue Harper, he keeps being defamatory and homophobic about gays.
Oh yeah, we cannot sue him, he’s part of the whole dictatorship!
Canadians that are rich don’t know what to do with their time so they try to squeeze the blood from little people so they can feed themselves. No, there are no laws against vampirism yet! It’s normal, THEY pass those laws…