p2pnet Freedom of Speech concert
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
~Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764
p2pnet: I’ve had a huge amount of email from around the world supporting me in my decision to take on Australia’s Sharman Networks, owner of the discredited Kazaa p2p file sharing application, and its ceo, Nikki Hemming, both of whom are suing me and p2pnet for alleged libel.
This is going to be precedent-setting, perhaps the first case that’s truly p2p. It’ll be tried in Vancouver and it’ll be a peer-to-peer site asking a jury of peers to make sure the principle of free speech is upheld in Canada.
At first blush, it looks like a very uneven battle – Sharman, with vast financial resources, against me, a stay-at-home father who’s barely breaking even with advertising income as the only means of support for himself, his family (a stay-at-home mother and a home-schooled, stay-at-home daughter ; ) and p2pnet.
But I have the Net and large segments of the international p2p community behind me, with all that implies.
Thanks to Sandro in Quebec and Jason Rohrer (the man who created the MUTE p2p file sharing application, in the US) I also have a Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign, which is bringing in a steady trickle of money. And well-known Canadian media lawyer Dan Burnett is working with (not for) me on the legal side.
Now Canadian indie musician, Fading Ways Records founder and activist Neil Leyton is both writing a Dylanesque song about p2pnet’s troubles with Sharman and Hemming, and organizing a benefit concert in Toronto, probably for around August.
There’ll be more on this, together with details at least two other interesting new developments, one political and one legal, later.
For now, Neil is just wrapping up a tour in the UK and he’s writing and recording the song in London, England, almost as I speak. Hopefully, it’ll generate even more interest in the case – both online and off.
Because although this seems to be a grotesquely lopsided battle between two utterly mismatched opponents, in reality, it’s a vitally important, precedent-setting case about Freedom of Speech in Canada and elsewhere. Size or weight don’t matter and, with a lot of help from my friends, I’ll be carrying the Freedom of Speech issue forward. The case lodged against me by S&H will be the vehicle.
By way of background, as I say here, Hemming and Sharman are after me for libel, claiming I defamed them in an article outlining Australian court proceedings into Hemming’s assets. They’re also demanding the identity of a p2pnet reader who posted an anonymous comment which I included in the same story. But as I say in the Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign, “as far as I’m concerned, an anonymous post is the same as a confidential source. I don’t have to like a post, or even agree with it. But I believe that as an honest and responsible human being, I do have to safeguard the poster, if indeed I know who he or she is which in this case, I don’t.
“If Sharman wins it’ll make life a potential hell for bloggers in Canada, at the least. And you can bet the case will be used as a reference for similar actions around the world.
” ‘I mean ‘cmon,’ I can hear someone saying. ‘That’s really stretching it.’ But No. It’s not.”
Back to the emails, a lot (most?) want to now where things currently stand; and, ask for more details.
On the first question, the ball is now squarely in Sharman and Hemming’s court.
On the second, here’s a brief breakdown.
I live in a small village on Vancouver Island, about an hour-and-a-half by ferry from mainland British Columbia. We don’t have snail-mail deliveries. Instead, we use post boxes and since 99% of our correspondence is online, we only visit the PO box once or twice a week, and often, not even that.
Late in the afternoon on Thursday, May 11, I, my wife, Liz, and our daughter Emma (almost 10) went to the village post office to check our snail-mail. Included with the usual flyers was a large, official-looking buff envelope from heavyweight libel laywer Roger McConchie. Dated May 5, it said he’d been retained to act for Hemming in relation to a couple of p2pnet stories, and comment posts associated with them.
McConchie demanded that I take the offending pages down, hand over the identities of people who’d posted the Reader’s Writes, one of which was included in full in a story, and run an apology, which he and his clients would first vet and approve.
His ‘deadline’ for all of this was May 8.
In an email to Hemming, I said, “Given the apparent urgency of this underscored by the demands being made of me, I think it’s remiss of Mr McConchie not to have ensured that I indeed received the May 5 letter in good time. He could, for example, have had it delivered by courier instead of mailing it. That way, he would have known, unquestionably, that I was in receipt of it. Instead, you act as though I had the letter sometime between May 6 and May 8. Even had that been so, this would scarcely have left me time to brief a lawyer and to have acted in accordance with your wishes.
“Mr McConchie also apparently sent an email to the site email address – jon@p2pnet.net: ‘apparently’ because I didn’t receive it. As someone who works online, you’ll understand when I say my web site email attracts huge amounts of spam and I therefore filter it to exclude unsolicited emails. I suspect that’s what happened to Mr McConchie’s email. But I can’t be sure because as I’ve said, I didn’t receive it.”
Meanwhile, this all came as a huge shock and I spent all day Friday trying to organize pro bono legal help. The weekend intervened, I was served with a summons early on Saturday, I couldn’t do much on Sunday, although I tried, and I spent Monday looking for a lawyer.
But I had no luck and to try to resolve things fairly and quickly, the next day, I suggested a solution might be for Hemming to address her stated difficulties in her own words through an unedited post on p2p-net, which I promised to leave up in the most prominent position I had for seven days, at the least; and, which would also have been clearly linked to the pages which offended her so anyone seeing them would immediately have been directed to the statement.
I also said I’d add an update on the pages saying the comments were unsupported.
In my letter to Hemming, I went on, “However, you’ve decided to proceed and I have to say I’m at a loss why this would be so. I took the pages down within the time specified, if you allow for the fact I didn’t get the letter until May 11, three days after your imposed deadline. I also did my best to address your concerns in a manner I’d hoped would satisfy you.”
I’ve been saying since Day One that I don’t have the IP addresses of the comment posters, or any other information about them, and I re-confirmed this, saying, “I can assure you that, just as I give you my word that I neither received your May 8 letter until May 11, nor saw the original email, I promise you I don’t know, and have no way of finding out, who wrote the three comments.”
I’m still willing to try to find common ground to try to resolve this with Sharman and Hemming, but be that as it may, one way or another, I’m determined to help to make a very public issue of the fact Canada’s libel laws need to be re-written so they conform to the bedrock principle of ‘Innocent until proven guilty’. Otherwise, other site owners and bloggers will find themselves in the same position as me, which will guarantee that freedom of speech online will end up in the same pitiful state that it is offline.
Comment posts seem largely central to this so, here again, are two from digital-copyright.ca’s Russell McOrmond:
The articles [the subject of the lawsuit] were not flattering, but the subjects of the messages are ‘famous’ persons within the p2p community and [the articles] didn’t seem any more defamatory than the average episode of CBC’s ‘This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ is towards Canadian politicians. Both may be on the edge, and both may be uncomfortable if you are the subject of what is being said, but that is a far cry from saying that a court should silence this speech.
This case is not about Jon’s ‘version of free speech’, but trying to ensure that Jon as a private blogger is offered at least the same level of free speech protection as a large broadcaster.
And in another:
… our belief in free speech is not tested by protecting speech we agree with, but the willingness to protect speech that we find appalling. I personally wouldn’t use Jon’s style in my own communications (trying to attract a mildly different audience), but I haven’t found anything I’ve personally read to cross any lines (moral or legal).
Cheers! And thanks to everyone …
Digg this story.
If you don’t like PayPal, here’s an address:
Jon Newton
PO Box 1532, Lake Cowichan
British Columbia V0R 2G0
June 7th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
June 7th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
would be pretty stupid of us to use paypal or mail a check. snailtrail.I got a twenty I would send but do not need name all over when this opens up. how is it that you dont have our ip. never heard of that before.
June 7th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I got a twenty
me too and i sent it
June 8th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I’ve never seen that Sharman ever specified a dollar amount of damages that they are suing for.
re: “settlement”: Did Sharman ever offer to drop the case for a cash payment, and if so, was this rejected or was a counter-offer made?
Regardless, any out of court settlements that might occur would normally not be signed off until the day before the court date begins. Anything sooner would be regarded as capitulation.
Unless Sharman sued for a small sum, such as the RIAA’s typical $3000 – $4000, which any rational lawyer would strongly advise accepting, rather than going to trial and spending ten times / a hundred times / or even a thousand times that amount in legal costs alone.
Other than holding out on principle, this is a no-win court case. Even if Jon Newton counter-sues and wins, Sharman is not going to pay out one red cent, since they have zero assets in Canada (and probably zero assets in Australia as well).
Depending on the laws in Vancouver, Jon could lose everything he owns – or virtually nothing if local laws protect basic personal assets from forteiture.
Texas, for instance, has Homestead Laws (declaring bankrupcy not req’d) which allow a person who loses a high-dollar civil case to keep a long list of personal property, including personal residence, a small farm, car, personal items, tools for self-employment, etc. If that is all a person owns, then they have little or nothing to lose in a lawsuit.
Let’s also remember that O.J. was ordered to pay millions to his victim’s families, but other than giving up his California house, he never lost anything because all his assets were in a Florida “retirement” account which was untouchable under Florida law.
Conversely, in some places in the world, a person could literally lose everything, down to the clothes off his back.
June 8th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Trying a new tactic eh troll ??
Now trying to frighten people away from donating.
No ones name will be all over anything.
buh bye Gachnar.
June 8th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Gachnar has changed tactics
Went from crass insults to fearmongering.
No ones fooled
Buh By Gachnar
June 8th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
LOL, didja see above how Gachnar tries to scare people away from
donating.
He works very hard pretending to be different posters.
Always manages to give himself away tho
June 8th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
“Other than holding out on principle, this is a no-win court case.”
I think holding out on principle is it exactly.
“”If Sharman wins it’ll make life a potential hell for bloggers in Canada, at the least. And you can bet the case will be used as a reference for similar actions around the world.”
“I mean ‘cmon,” I can hear someone saying. “That’s really stretching it.” But No. It’s not.”
http://p2pnet.net/story/8949
June 8th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
He doesn’t have to scare them away. The donations arent exactly pouringh in
June 8th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
just ignore them.
June 8th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
who is Gachnar? and why does he/she have it out for Jon? or is it just for p2p information sites in general?
June 8th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
who cares? just ignore it.
June 8th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Google it
June 8th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Heh. That means Gachnar is in effect paying for the space instead of merely being boring.
The downside is we have to put up with the effluence.
But that’s OK ; )
CheErs!
June 9th, 2006 at 1:06 am
There might be a minimum amount. I tried donating a small amount and the transaction would not go through. A few years ago when I was donating to server funds, the minimum set at that time was usually $5.00. Otherwise, there was little use donating because the overhead costs would eat up most of a small donation.
BTW – what’s the big deal about this “gachnar” charactor anyway? One of my posts was declared as such, as were at least several others that were not mine.
(maybe someone could provide a few links to “gachnar’s” previous posts so I can see for myself what all the fuss is about?)
June 9th, 2006 at 1:24 am
hahahaha Nice one!
Copy/paste of what a Gachnar is… LOL
Gachnar manifests & is mocked
from Fear Itself (Season 4) Next Clip in Episode
(The mark on the floor begins to glow. There’s rumbling)
WILLOW: Look!
(We get a close up of Gachnar, and he’s one ugly dude. Gachnar looks up and the camera pulls back to reveal that he is tiny, maybe a half a foot tall, if that.)
BUFFY: This is Gachnar?
XANDER: Big overture. Little show.
Gachnar: I am the dark lord of nightmares!
(Buffy tries not to laugh)
Gachnar: The bringer of terror! Tremble before me. Fear me!
WILLOW: He – he’s no cute!
Gachnar: Tremble!
XANDER: Who’s a little fear demon? Come on! Who’s a little fear demon!
GILES: Don’t taunt the fear demon.
XANDER: Why, can he hurt me?
GILES: No, it’s just – tacky. Be that as it may, Buffy, when it comes to slaying…
BUFFY: Size doesn’t matter?
Gachnar: They’re all going to abandon you, you know.
BUFFY: Yeah, Yeah.
(We get a shot of Buffy’s huge foot as she stomps down and squishes the fear demon.)
LOL
June 9th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
“I tried donating a small amount and the transaction would not go through.”
Just now did it myself. 1.00 went through without any problems.
small amount work perfectly fine. There seems to be NO
minimum. Even if you can only do a little, please go ahead.
It all adds up.
Exactly which post of yours got tagged as Gachnar, I wonder ?
Just curious.
June 9th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
“-= Disclaimer:This is just my opinion. =-
- As such I’m NOT suggesting any comment following –
- this preface is true. In fact I live in a fairy-tale –
- and nothing I say should be taken seriously. – ”
It doesn’t seem like much but ….
How much would he have if 100,000 people send in only
a quarter each ??
Nice huh ?
June 10th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
one quarter, just sent…
everyone push that button
June 10th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
-= Disclaimer:This is just my opinion. =-
- As such I’m NOT suggesting any comment following –
- this preface is true. In fact I live in a fairy-tale –
- and nothing I say should be taken seriously. –
Let’s analyze this a bit …
First you claimed that …
“I tried donating a small amount and the transaction would not go through. ”
This obviously wasn’t true.
Why lie about something like that ??
Now you say …
“nothing … if the transaction fee is 26 cents or more. There is going to be a per-transaction service charge. At one time this was over a dollar up front, plus a percentage on a sliding scale. ”
The first one was a lie, I don’t believe this one either, as
I ,just as the other poster, just tried to drop a quarter in the bucket, and had no problem.
Why lie about this too ??
To discourage people from donating.
Sometimes folks don’t realize just how much a little bit can do.
Just imagine every person that walks past your home throwing a quarter in a bucket ?
If every person that stops by here drops even .25 per week, or every couple of days, it won’t even dent their budget, but it will have the effect of a nice rainstorm. Those little drops will add up, and cause a flood
This person is not being truthful, and trying to discourage donating, so, I have donated ..again
Everytime someone bashes Jon or tries to discourage donating, I will donate. I have confirmed personally that small amounts all the way down to .25 cents work just fine, and even someone like me, on a fixed income due to disability, can regularly donate, knowing those small amounts WILL add up if enough of us do it.
Help Gachnar pay for the lawsuit.
June 11th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
in
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:56 pm
FRAUD WARNING!! Please spread the word: Kazaa, Altnet, Sharman and any/all companies AND/OR persons associated with or using the name Kazaa,KaZaA, Kazaa Lite, Kazaa Gold, Kazaa Plus, etc., are still active in de-frauding unwary consumers, both past and present, on a worldwide basis. Their ’support’ websites are folding quicker than consumers can find them, customers rights, memberships and certificates are all being revoked and cancelled, e-mail links are being shut down, and possible legal action is pending which may involve innocent customers downloading movies and/and or music and music videos which now appear to be illegally offered. Newly named sights involving any of those listed above are simply using the same illegal tricks in new storefronts.
Please join in, possibly through a massive class action lawsuit, to throw these people in prison and refund customes their hard earned dollars!
haz
(Go ahead call me a coward but Kazaa, AKA Nikki and Simon and Kevin and especially “Shannon”, owe me money and have my personal info!!
I can be more aggressive in an investigation now underway to help you and others by temporarily remaining unknown).