Wayne Crookes wants to freeze the net
p2pnet view Freedom:- As things stand, nothing happens in isolation online. But Wayne Crookes (right), ex-Green Party of Canada organizer and financial backer, wants to change that.
He says linking to an article is the same as publishing it and that linking to an allegedly libellous article can, therefore, be the same as defamation.
He says that’s what happened to him and so he wants to freeze the net solid, turning it into a sterile, featureless, colourless landscape.
He wants the threads which bind the World Wide Web, cut.
And he wants Marshall Rothstein, Rosalie Silberman Abella, Louise Charron, Thomas A. Cromwell, Marie Deschamps, William Ian Corneil Binnie, Beverley McLachlin, Louis LeBel, and Morris J. Fish (below, left to right) to wield the knife.
They’re the members of the supreme court of Canada, the “final court of appeal, the last judicial resort for all litigants, whether individuals or governments”, it says, declaring, “Its jurisdiction embraces both the civil law of the province of Quebec and the common law of the other provinces and territories.”
Their word is law. Literally.
They, and they alone, will soon have the mind-boggling responsibility of deciding whether or not Canada will be thrown back to the communication dark ages when the dissemination of information and news was almost entirely in the hands of corporate providers.
Not at all coincidentally, many (most?) of these companies are still owned by the same entertainment industry cartels which are tying up governments around the world with their plans to gain exclusive control of how online content is distributed, and by whom, via their secret ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), and its associated Three Strikes law.
An impenetrable quagmire
“Canada is free and freedom is its nationality“, former Canadian prime minister Wilfred Laurier once said.
The nine Canadian justices will rule on what could justifiably be described as the most important freedom of speech issue in Canada in modern times.
They’ll decide if the free-flowing internet will be turned into an impenetrable quagmire at the behest of Wayne Crookes, the owner of a small British Columbia company called West Coast Title Search.
Without links, the net would literally disintegrate. Without them, Google, Yahoo, et al, would immediately be out of business, anybody or anything which depends on being able to quickly find information would suddenly find themselves back in the era when manual searches taking days and weeks were the only way to ferret out information.
Governments and their agencies wouldn’t be able to function. Companies would have to rely on internal links, and there’d also be massive copyright issues: if you’re publishing when you’re linking …
And so on. It’d be a mess.
‘The chill has already set in … ‘
When Crookes launched his lawsuits, named with me were Michael Geist, Google, Wikimedia, Pbwiki, Yahoo, MySpace, Openpolitics.ca, Domains by Proxy, Michael Pilling, Hayley Easto, Kate Holloway, Craig Hubley, Frank Cameron, Catharine Johannson, Gareth White and anonymous persons. However, my case was the only one in which the charge was alleged defamation by linking.
The issue was, and still is, vitally important to free speech on-and offline, and when it broke, it should have been headline news.
But then, as now, it was all-but ignored by the editors and publishers who control Canada’s mainstream print and electronic media. Presumably they feared they, too, might find themselves targeted by Crookes. So they decided cowardice was the better part of valour.
This time around reporting has so far been almost exclusively in the hands of two wire services, the Canadian Press and Canwest News Service.
Now CBC is covering it”, says a Reader’s Write to my earlier post on the news, going on, “Late as usual, but better than not at all.”
But not much better. It uses the CP story. “I just did a bit of reading up on the case (not a lot out there, the chill has already set in – as most sites are veeeery cagey with respect to what they will say about either the case or Mr. Crookes himself)”, says a comment post.
Actually, they’re not saying anything. It’s the same, lame Canadian Press story that’s being regurgitated by what seems to be half of the Canadian mainstream media. Others — the minority, unfortunately — are using the more detailed Canwest News Service item.
“Well CBC probably didn’t post the links to the websites in question because they are waiting for the result of this ruling”, says another CBC comment, “because of course if CBC says what sites they are there could be a lawsuit against them 
.”
The burden of proof
“Free speech isn’t a global constant”, says Slyck from across the border, going on >>>
In Canada, defamation laws follow closely English law. In other words, much of the burden of proof falls on the defendant. There’s no “actual malice” burden that a complainant must meet, and there’s no Section 230 law that prevents publishers from being held responsible for potentially defamatory material posted by a third party. That lack of freedom put Canadian publication p2pnet at legal odds with a Vancouver businessman who took issue with hyperlinks posted by p2pnet.
Says All Headline News, also in the US >>>
The federal Supreme Court of Canada will hear a landmark case that has the potential to dramatically redefine libel and make Internet users think twice before posting a link on their website.
The lawsuit involves former Green Party campaign manager Wayne Crookes, who is appealing a British Columbia Supreme Court decision in 2008 that favored a Canadian website. Crookes claims posting a link to a portal that has defamatory statements is tantamount to the publication of that material.
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher dismissed Crookes’ lawsuit in 2008, ruling the links were just footnotes or references to a portal and did not comprise an act of publication. Crookes has filed several libel lawsuits against some members of the Green Party, Google, Myspace.com and Wikipedia.
Crookes claimed he was defamed by four articles on the Internet on the Websites of www.openpolitics.ca and www.usgovernetics.com, which were eventually linked to the portal www.p2pnet.net owned by Jon Newton.
Newton said he was not interested in the issues involving the Green Party of Canada, only in free speech and the Internet.
And ultimately, according to crath (80215) in a Slashdot post, it’s all my fault in a very personal sense.
“The article, nicely linked 
, in the Montreal Gazette [story] says that the challenge is not attempting to overturn the concept that links are akin to footnotes”, says crath, going on, “Rather, that when it was pointed out to the poster that the link pointed to defamatory material, that the link wasn’t taken down — and so, the poster’s inaction is what is at issue.
“If the poster had converted the link to a mere textual footnote, then no one would be able to assert that the poster was acting as a publisher. But, by facilitating access to the offending material (and not simply giving the title of the material), the poster was effectively publishing it.
“This is no different than a torrent index being required to remove links to torrents of copyrighted material. If the torrent index refuses to remove offending links, then they become liable.”
Head over to openpolitics.ca for detail on the lawsuits, including p2pnet’s allegedly defamatory linking.
Post it on slashdot, digg it, tweet it …
For now, please spread this news as far and wide as you can. Don’t worry about linking back to, or quoting, p2pnet. Add to this post, take parts away, re-write it but get this on as many online forums as you can.
Post it on Slashdot, Digg it, Tweet it, put it on Reddit, boing it on Boing Boing — everything you can think of.
The appeal is slated for December 7.
For now, we need to do what the mainstream media can’t, or won’t, do —- get started on creating a body of online material to reflect the importance of this case not only to Canadians, but to everyone, everywhere.
Because it doesn’t matter where you are, the supreme court of Canada ruling will bounce, and bounce and bounce, impacting freedom of speech around the world.
Thanks. And stay tuned …
Jon Newton - online citizen
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
freedom is its nationality – Freedom of speech can vanish in the night, September 17, 2009
April, 2010
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April 4th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Wayne Crookes = Epic Fail. Was that defamation?
April 4th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
http://www.geekosystem.com/canadian-hyperlink-lawsuit/
April 4th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Even professor geist only gave it a passing mention.
April 4th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
[insert story here], link to Riaa Hater’s comment: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/37636#comment-1004713, [continue story here]
Now I am guilty too and will be sued too for adding a reference
Must sell my home to pay Crookes. My kids won’t understand as we eat kraft dinner for a month (if lucky) as I go without the 9 heart meds cuz I need to afford KD to feed the kids.
April 4th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
This case was slashdotted.
April 4th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
http://digg.com/tech_news/Wayne_Crookes_Wants_to_Freeze_The_Internet
April 4th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
One just has to wonder when all this insanity will end. Will common sense ever return to the world? Was it ever there to begin with? Forget nukes, greed is what will ultimately be the downfall of the human race.
April 4th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
@ above, It is not so much the human race as the companies and corporations who believe they own the world and us. They are encouraged in this belief by our governments.
April 4th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
And the more I think about the copyright aspect (if you’re publishing every time you link) the more ridiculous this whole thing seems.
Cheers!
April 5th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Send Crookes a condom by mail. He should not breed, at all.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:11 am
“everything you can think of”
Done
http://mp2pnews.theunbound.org/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1270440496&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&
April 5th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Regardless of the law, people will share links and share stuff.
April 5th, 2010 at 10:50 am
London Free Press
http://www.lfpress.com/money/columnists/david_canton/2010/04/01/13439871.html
Cheers!
April 5th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
@jon,
Does this mean this douche bag is finally out of your life, or does he have another rabbit he can pull out of his ass?
April 5th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
@ Monkey: There’s only one rabbit.
Cheers!
April 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Canadian Supreme Court To Hear Case Over Liability For Linking To Defamatory Information
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100403/0654488862.shtml
Cheers!
April 6th, 2010 at 4:54 am
This is absurd. Sadly, I do realize that doesn’t mean Mr. Crookes won’t win in court.
My blog post in support: http://whoacanada.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/what-happened-to-the-news-media/
Good luck.
April 18th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Good idea to “get started on creating a body of online material to reflect the importance of this case not only to Canadians, but to everyone, everywhere.” However, the people that already did this at openpolitics.ca and Wikipedia and other legitimate forums to debate this sort of thing mostly/all got sued, even Wikipedia itself. So the big question is, where should it go? Sourcewatch.org?
The main thing is not to be intimidated.
This is a winnable fight, and so is the larger fight to exterminate the public issue (or “political libel”) motivated SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuits against public participation) that motivates such plaintiffs. Only the English Canadian provinces and the UK retain the unreformed common law of libel from which the linking arguments and reverse-onus (”guilty until proven innocent”) and inclusion of public issues and figures are drawn to make it possible to file such cases. Quebec, California, Australia, New Zealand, soon the US federally, have anti-SLAPP statutes to make cases motivated by political gain or goals go away. In all those jurisdictions except Quebec, public issue comment was exempted from libel law based on good old common law argument itself. Those arguments have simply been made incompetently in Canada or to incompetent judges, including Justice Cory who foolishly and famously declared (in Hill vs. Scientology) that he saw “no evidence of libel chill in Canada” to justify throwing out the common law, as was done before or since in every constitutional regime in the English speaking world. The European Court of Human Rights (ECR) ruled against the UK law in McDonald’s vs. Steel and Morris (”McLibel”) and declared that the defendants had not had a fair trial. Nor have most of Crookes’ defendants given the inequitable position of defending remotely against an experienced litigant in his home court. A lot more attention to these issues and Crookes should lose, those who want the common law of libel to stand aren’t going to want Crookes to become the poster boy for libel “victims”, because he’ll get no sympathy from those who know all the facts. Make no mistake, more Crookes cases are going to go to the Supreme Court, so unless a pattern of total loss gets started now, it’s hard to reverse. In effect the court must dislike Crookes more than it likes Cory, and yes it amounts to that, since this so-called “law” consists of bogus non-distinctions, Victorian abstractions and other nonsense that has no business in law at all. In the US, strict tests (proof of malice, false statements of fact, specificity to those suing not a group, proof of actual damages, and because almost none of this is possible on public issue debate the case simply cannot be about such debates or interpretations) were upheld in 1964, again based mostly on common law argument but also on the US constitution. Well we have a constitution now, too, and so did Europe and that’s why “McLibel” was lost by the UK, so it’s time to eradicate this entire type of lawsuit.
One step at a time. First, the gross absurdity of the position that any link to something makes someone the publisher of it (!) must be demonstrated. Then, the consequences of adopting such a position should be explained clearly to the court by intervenors (for instance the fleeing offshore of all comment on anything important, and the universal use of proxy servers to hide who posted or commented) who should conclude correctly that this ruling is the end of the country of Canada itself, as a country totally dependent on outside (read US) hosts to discuss its most vital issues is not viable. To say nothing of not being able to enforce real laws (against death threats, genuinely false statements of fact about personal or commercial matters, spreading genuinely dangerous illegal material, you name it folks) as literally everyone has proxied up. Imagine Canadians forced to debate hot issues like the Chinese, Burmese, or Iranians do. Worse, imagine Chinese, Burmese or Iranian political commentators exposed by Canadian cronies of those governments (it’s not at all clear what Crookes’ motives are, he or his lawyers may well have some intention to approach dictators and offer to find all their critics for them, for all we know) can and will be tortured. So there ought to be a very large number of intervenors who can correctly terrify the Court.
Meanwhile plaintiffs in such cases are still indexed by Google, even while suing Google – very nice of Google but there’s no legal reason for that to be true. There used to be a USENET Death Penalty to punish those who grossly abused the Internet as a medium. Who implements the Web Death Penalty and what are the criteria?
April 18th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Here’s a good guide to intervening in the SCC:
http://www.supremecourtlaw.ca/default_e.asp?id=82
It is a feasible thing to do and explaining the full consequences of any ruling that favours Crookes in the least, even just a costs ruling, multiplied by all the linking about even just all the political issues on the net, equals trillions of dollars in free money to crooked lawyers.
To say nothing of the complete route-around of Canadian service providers and the total block on Canadian users that would have to be put into place by any sane person running a web forum or service.
Meanwhile plaintiffs even in SLAPP cases against Google are still indexed by Google – very nice of Google but there’s no legal reason for them to be nice to such folks. There used to be a USENET Death Penalty to punish those who grossly abused the Internet as a medium. Who implements the Web Death Penalty and what are the criteria? When does West Coast Title Search begin to feel the heat for funding and facilitating these abuses by its CEO? Boycotts against customers of abusive litigants have been effective in the past sometimes.