p2pnet v Crookes – and staying anonymous online
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- “Am I reading this wrong?” – asks a friend in an email.
He goes on, “It’s a blog by a law firm in Calgary (the firm must be connected to the blog since the firm is listed in the ‘About’, and not just a blog by an individual).”
The item in question is headed up Can you be anonymous online in Canada? and it’s on the ipblog.ca.
It goes like this >>>
If someone engages in online defamation, online copyright infringement or any number of other illegal acts on the internet, the first question is who is actually committing the act in question? One of the main issues facing litigants in Canada is the identity of anonymous actors who are shielded by mysterious usernames, aliases or cryptic email addresses.
In a recent decision in Nova Scotia, a judge ordered Google and a local paper to disclose the identity of individuals who are alleged to have posted defamatory statements on a local website. The judge declared: “The court doesn’t condone the conduct of anonymous Internet users who make defamatory comments. They, like other people, have to be accountable for their actions.” The decision flies in the face of other Canadian court decisions where judges have erred on the side of protecting the identity of online users.
Erred? That’s what it says, adding >>>
In a related development, the BC Court of Appeal decision in Crookes v. Newton (see our previous post) is heading to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), for a ruling on the subject of online defamation. Leave to appeal was granted earlier this month and the decsion of the SCC should clarify this area of law, particularly the extent of liability for hyperlinks to defamatory content.
A “related” development?
In the Nova Scotia case, Halifax, Nova Scotia, fire chief Bill Mosher and deputy chief Stephen Thurber said they were thinking about launching a defamation lawsuit against people who’d posted allegedly defamatory comments on Coast, a weekly alternative newspaper.
Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge Heather Robertson ordered the newspaper and Google to identify the posters, and Coast and Goggle said they’ll comply, according to the Canadian Press.
Mosher and Thurber are also thinking about suing the author of emails sent through a Gmail account, the story added.
In Crookes v Newton, Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes (right) “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”, I posted in a p2pnet, story saying the case has now gone to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Crookes states “that’s what happened to him and so he wants to freeze the net solid, turning it into a sterile, featureless, colourless landscape”, I said, going on, “He wants the threads which bind the World Wide Web, cut.”
Says my friend about the ipblog.ca entry >>>
The [ipblog.ca] blog talks about, “illegal acts on the internet” and the, “identity of anonymous actors who are shielded by mysterious usernames, aliases or cryptic email addresses.”
The Canadian law firm then draws a parallel of this to you!
“In a related development, the BC Court of Appeal decision in Crookes v. Newton (see our previous post)”
How the heck is “illegal acts on the internet & identity of anonymous actors who are shielded by mysterious usernames, aliases or cryptic email addresses” related to you and Crookes?
You aren’t anonymous. You don’t have some sort of illegal activity going on. Crookes tried to sue the net. Geist, Newton, Wiki, Goolge, Open Politics, to name a few.
Where does this illegal activity and scary anon come in for pasting a link (footnote)?
Why is this related as he states?
Who knows? But Bazza ‘Three Strikes’ Sookman apparently gets it, linking to it in his own blog which is entitled, simply, Barry Sookman. 
“Am I seeing things?” – my friend adds.
Nope. You’re not.
This is Canada, land of the fee.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
ipblog.ca – Can you be anonymous online in Canada?, April 20, 2010
defamation lawsuit – Anonymous posts threatened in Nova Scotia, April 15, 2010
Canadian Press – Watch what you say: Court orders newspaper to identify anonymous commentators, April 14, 2010
p2pnet – Wayne Crookes wants to freeze the net, April 4, 2010
Bazza ‘Three Strikes’ Sookman – Bazza Sookman and the 3 Strikes Plan, January 22, 2010
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April 23rd, 2010 at 10:01 am
Canada doesn’t have the freedoms other countries have. If the likes of these fable tellers get their way we will have even less.
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Since corporations are not people I wonder why the law should allow corporations to sue for defamation even in Canada.
April 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
If pasting a link is the same as if you wrote it, then barry sookman is basically copying and pasting a shit load of copyright material from others under his own name with that link shown in this story.
Same thing.