Wayne Crookes: Epic Fail
Dateline Ottawa Airport – p2pnet view P2P:- Wayne Crookes and Julian Assange have both made major contributions in proving the net is rapidly becoming THE news and information dissemination vehicle of the 21st digital century, Assange in a positive sense, and Crookes in a distinctly negative one.
Assange spreads the word online.
Crookes (right) wants to shut it down.
He claims linking to a story is the same as publishing it and tried to get me to yank a link to an item he said defamed him.
I refused, he sued me and the case ultimately ended in the Supreme Court of Canada.
A former senior Green Party of Canada official, Crookes’ earlier assertions that his name had been sullied reached only a very few people, relatively speaking.
Now millions of people know him as the man who tried to turn the net in Canada, dark.
As I said to Dan Burnett, my pro bono lawyer immediately after yesterday’s hearing, justice Louise Charron pulled it all together when she stated >>>
It seems to me that if we accept the position you’re putting forth [Crookes' lawyer] , then no one should ever hyperlink. Maybe I’m a chicken, but I would not dare create a hyperlink because there might be some defamatory material, and I’ll be stuck defending myself in court, and I cannot afford it : We’re sentencing the hyperlink to death, it seems to me.
We can expect to hear the Supreme’s decision sometime within the next four to 12 months, I’m told.
What will they decide?
I believe they’ll go along the lines of BC Supreme Court judge Stephen Kelleher’s earlier ruling that website owners aren’t responsible for defamatory content on other sites to which they’ve linked.
However, if the linking website endorses the material or encourages readers to go to the linked site, the linking site may be liable because that might constitute publication, he said.
So stay tuned. 
Also see Wayne Crookes vs Jon Newton
Jon Newton - p2pnet
December, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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December 8th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
The lawyers aren’t the only ones who will make money from your refusal. )
“http://www.thewirereport.ca/reports/content/11644-hyperlinks_as_publications_would_threaten_digital_publishing_media_companies_say
Defining hyperlinks as publications would set a dangerous precedent that could impact competition in the digital media sector, interveners told the Supreme Court at a hearing Tuesday.
“If hyperlinking is publication, it will have a serious impact on the ability of [digital news] industries to bring content to its readership and to maintain its economic survival,” Robert Anderson, counsel with Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP, told a full bench of Supreme Court justices Tuesday.
Anderson appeared on behalf of the Canadian Newspaper Association, the Canadian Media Lawyers Association, Magazines Canada, and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
Purchase this article for $25
December 8th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Supreme’s decision sometime within the next four to 12 months, I’m told.
but I want it naooooooooowwwww. Aww well.
Seems like you did well Jon
December 8th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Here is me crossing my fingers that one of the key notions of hypertext will be protected. Hypertexts are like footnotes, not publication. If the link is to a defamatory or otherwise potentially illegal remark or content it should be the person who posted that remark, not any third parties, that are held responsible.
I’m looking forward to reading specific transcripts, including whether the question of changed content will come up. The contents of what a hyper-link references can change over time, and it seems entirely unreasonable to hold a person providing a link responsible for content they may not even be aware of.
December 8th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Looks like you’ve won Jon. Great result.
December 8th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I know you will be relieved when this is done with. I know it’s been a strain on you and yours to weather this through.
I am sure this is one of those cases where the good of the whole will outweigh the good of one. Should the judge rule that hyperlinking is being responsible for someone else’s writings, then the net and all it’s benefits will have to be rethought. Not just in Canada but world wide. If the judge were to rule liability through hyperlink then every shyster lawyer in the world would be bringing their slander cases to Canada just because it would be an easy win.
The ultimate result of that would be the end of hyperlink and the end of the net as we know it.
I’m sure that would make the copywrong industries happy not to have to worry about the net anymore but everyone else that is looking to save money by having a net presence to replace brick and mortar stores, would at some point run afoul of the hyperlink “problem” should you be ruled against. I can not grasp the idea that all these businesses worldwide would be so accepting of a negative ruling for you.
December 8th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Crookes is obviously a moron who is being a pain in the ass and a waste of time.
December 8th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
“However, if the linking website endorses the material or encourages readers to go to the linked site, the linking site may be liable because that might constitute publication, he said.”
I have problem with the words ENDORSE and ENCOURAGE and of course, MAY. These are ambiguous and meaningless words and… If I were an actor and was paid to endorse or encourage others to buy an unsafe product on an ad, I should in no way be responsible for the products’ safety. Only the maker of the product is responsible.
Endorsing or worse, defending crooks is what lawyers are paid to do. I doubt a lawyer was ever penalized for endorsing and defending a crook in the courtroom.
There is no way anyone can be penalized for linking unless one is part of the linked to organization and a decision maker therein.
December 9th, 2010 at 10:57 am
At least is appears that there may be a bit of sanity left with Canada’s Courts.
December 10th, 2010 at 6:21 am
I have problem with the words ENDORSE and ENCOURAGE and of course, MAY.
I agree wholeheartedly. These words are ambiguous, nebulous and vague in their application. There would be little predictability which would have the practical effect of making publishers more reticent to link.
I think Kelleher’s original judgement was sensible, but Crookes has proven to be very persistent.
There is a long discussion of hyperlinks and their function in a 2005 Australian copyright authorisation infringement case where the defendant Cooper in Universal Music v Cooper [2005] FCA 972. He placed links to websites containing infringing copies of recorded music. Although I realise it is a copyright case, the discussion on the function of hyperlinks is interesting. To establish authorisation infringement in Australia you have to have countenanced, sanctioned or approved such infringement. This was the Court’s finding:-
“The words “sanction” and “approve” are expressions of wide import. Cooper, in my view, could have prevented the infringements by removing the hyperlinks from his website or by structuring the website in such a way that the operators of the remote websites from which MP3 files were downloaded could not automatically add hyperlinks to the website without some supervision or control by Cooper. The evidence of Professor Sterling, who was called on behalf of the applicants, is unchallenged to the effect that a website operator is always able to control the hyperlinks on his or her website, either by removal of the links or by requiring measures to be taken by the remote website operator prior to adding a hyperlink..”
December 13th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Perhaps some of the posters here should update the slashdot discussion http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/12/11/1346227/Canadian-Supreme-Court-To-Decide-If-Linking-Is-Publishing
And others at techdirt.com that are seemingly out of step with the nature of the case.
“Winning” this case is not winning. It will still be possible to file lawsuits against persons for quoting or linking (with “agreement” or otherwise) to any whistle-blowing web site like http://wikileaks.de or any of the other 1800+ Wikileaks mirrors. I bet you can find some “defamatory” stuff by the overly lax Canadian standard on a few dozen of those pages and then convince someone to sue all the mirrors. So the problem can’t be solved by this Supreme Court ruling.
Clear anti-SLAPP laws that dismiss cases like this on the grounds of pubic issue subject matter are the only long term solution to this kind of attack.
How many people could do what Jon’s been forced to do and defend something (whose actual legal status has not *EVER* been ruled on) so long?
The process is the abuse here. Iceland’s new law prevents most such abuses: http://immi.is In Canada Quebec has the best anti-SLAPP laws so far.