its not libel if its true afaik.Jaekus wrote:
And the dude posting the billboard in the OP isn't?ghettoperson wrote:
But that's libel so it's a whole different case.Jaekus wrote:
So if I put up 20 billboards saying your family are all idiots of the highest order and your dad is a paedophile, you would not have a problem with this?
Sweet.
Yes, but the woman's friends claim she had a miscarriage, so therefore...Cybargs wrote:
its not libel if its true afaik.Jaekus wrote:
And the dude posting the billboard in the OP isn't?ghettoperson wrote:
But that's libel so it's a whole different case.
oh if thats the case then... motherfucker should burnJaekus wrote:
Yes, but the woman's friends claim she had a miscarriage, so therefore...Cybargs wrote:
its not libel if its true afaik.Jaekus wrote:
And the dude posting the billboard in the OP isn't?
Because it's the truth. Allegedly.Jaekus wrote:
And the dude posting the billboard in the OP isn't?ghettoperson wrote:
But that's libel so it's a whole different case.Jaekus wrote:
So if I put up 20 billboards saying your family are all idiots of the highest order and your dad is a paedophile, you would not have a problem with this?
Sweet.
Well if they're telling the truth then she has the worlds easiest lawsuit, and this whole thing is irrelevant.Jaekus wrote:
Allegedly not, since the woman's friends say she had a miscarriage.
Bottom line is we don't know, but either way it isn't in the public interest.
It was only there solely for him to seek some means of damaging her in some way.
Not really cause you have to prove intent to do personal harm. If he didn't put the name up there is not real personal harm intent, easily could be a pro-life billboard. There's really nothing to see here other then attorneys trying to make a buck.ghettoperson wrote:
Well if they're telling the truth then she has the worlds easiest lawsuit, and this whole thing is irrelevant.Jaekus wrote:
Allegedly not, since the woman's friends say she had a miscarriage.
Bottom line is we don't know, but either way it isn't in the public interest.
It was only there solely for him to seek some means of damaging her in some way.
England has much laxer libel laws than we do. You guys can pretty much sue anyone over there and it's on the defense to prove they are innocent. Here, it's the opposite, the onus is on the accuser.ghettoperson wrote:
You don't need to prove intent for a libel case. They're pretty straightforward.
I was under the impression libel was very easy to prove in the US as well.Jay wrote:
England has much laxer libel laws than we do. You guys can pretty much sue anyone over there and it's on the defense to prove they are innocent. Here, it's the opposite, the onus is on the accuser.ghettoperson wrote:
You don't need to prove intent for a libel case. They're pretty straightforward.
burnzz wrote:
Delainy Iris Meddow
Nope, not even close. You guys have basically created an industry over there. People fly to London to launch libel suits rather than try them here. Very, very difficult to prove here.ghettoperson wrote:
I was under the impression libel was very easy to prove in the US as well.Jay wrote:
England has much laxer libel laws than we do. You guys can pretty much sue anyone over there and it's on the defense to prove they are innocent. Here, it's the opposite, the onus is on the accuser.ghettoperson wrote:
You don't need to prove intent for a libel case. They're pretty straightforward.
the onus is always on the accuser in england, too, in anything that's a civil case. criminal, obviously the other way around.Jay wrote:
England has much laxer libel laws than we do. You guys can pretty much sue anyone over there and it's on the defense to prove they are innocent. Here, it's the opposite, the onus is on the accuser.ghettoperson wrote:
You don't need to prove intent for a libel case. They're pretty straightforward.
they're very difficult to prove in england, too. stop taking the newspaper at face value. have you studied english law? no? okay then.Jay wrote:
Nope, not even close. You guys have basically created an industry over there. People fly to London to launch libel suits rather than try them here. Very, very difficult to prove here.ghettoperson wrote:
I was under the impression libel was very easy to prove in the US as well.Jay wrote:
England has much laxer libel laws than we do. You guys can pretty much sue anyone over there and it's on the defense to prove they are innocent. Here, it's the opposite, the onus is on the accuser.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124406714025182743.htmlSimon Singh is an award-winning British science writer. In the best-selling "Fermat's Enigma," for example, he described the 350-year quest for the proof of Pierre de Fermat's last theorem, which eluded mathematicians until the 1990s. Now his inquiring mind has got him into trouble with U.K. libel laws -- laws that have long stifled free speech not just in Britain but around the world.
In April 2008, Mr. Singh wrote an article in the Guardian challenging the British Chiropractic Association's claim that its treatments can cure, among other ailments, colic among infants, ear infections, and asthma. Mr. Singh said there was no evidence to support these claims, which he called "bogus."
The association could have challenged the author in an open debate, providing the evidence Mr. Singh said did not exist. Instead, it sued the author for libel. In a remarkable ruling last month, Justice David Eady decided that Mr. Singh's article was defamatory because, according to the judge, Mr. Singh implied that the association deliberately misled the public.
Mr. Singh, though, didn't suggest that the chiropractors were being dishonest -- after all, they might sincerely believe that their treatment is effective. He simply questioned the scientific validity of their claims. But that was no longer the issue. Ironically, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority upheld last month a complaint against a chiropractor's claim that he could treat children with colic and learning difficulties.
Mr. Singh now can either settle the case or fight it, first within the British system, and then, if necessary, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. His defense costs have already set him back £100,000. Should he pursue the case to the bitter end, his legal bills could rise with geometric progression.
How did we get here? Unlike in the United States, where plaintiffs have to prove that the defendant's statement is willfully false and defamatory, the burden of proof is reversed in Britain. According to U.K. libel laws, the plaintiff has to show only that the statement harms his reputation -- which is the case with almost any accusation, true or false. It is the defendant who must then prove that his allegations were not libelous.
The damage awards are often in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Ditto lawyers' fees. The mere prospect of possible financial ruin in a process where the cards are stacked in favor of the plaintiff has chilled free speech. In a democracy, though, laws should encourage, not penalize, vigorous debate and investigative reporting. Instead, lawsuits are stifling the spirit of inquiry, which is at the heart of science and sound journalism.
The impact on the media goes beyond stopping sleazy tabloids prying into the private lives of celebrities. It is far more serious, suppressing coverage of political and security matters of great interest to the public. Fear of spurious libel suits have convinced some editors to ignore certain stories. I was told myself by two British publications not to bother pitching articles about companies from certain countries out of fear of litigation. After receiving complaints from Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz, Cambridge University Press in 2007 pulped copies of "Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World" by J. Millard Burr and Robert Collins. Similar concerns over possible lawsuits also caused Random House in 2004 to cancel publication in the U.K. of Craig Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud," a best-seller in the U.S.
British libel laws claim almost universal jurisdiction, allowing plaintiffs to sue over publications that may have only a tenuous link with Britain. This in turn has encouraged libel tourism -- a lucrative business for British lawyers -- as foreigners jet to British courts seeking protection from public scrutiny.
As a consequence, the U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would make British libel judgments unenforceable in the U.S. This unusual step, invalidating British judgments, is the direct consequence of another case involving Khalid bin Mahfouz. He won a verdict against American author Rachel Ehrenfeld, who examined the flows of Saudi money to Islamist terrorists in her book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It." The judge -- the same David Eady as in Mr. Singh's case -- ruled in the plaintiff's favor even though the offending book was not available for sale in U.K. book shops and only a few copies may have been sold in the U.K. on the Internet. Ms. Ehrenfeld and her publisher had decided not to publish the book in Britain for the very purpose of escaping British libel laws -- but to no avail.
Among other recent foreign cases heard in London are that of Kaupthing, an Icelandic bank, which filed a lawsuit against Ekstrabladet, a Danish newspaper for alleging that the bank had dodged taxes. Other tycoons and celebrities have helped themselves through the generosity of the British libel law system. Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky sued U.S. magazine Forbes in 2000. A Ukrainian businessman, Rinat Akhmetov, sued two Ukrainian publications in British courts.
The Labour government doesn't seem to think that the libel laws tarnish the reputation of the world's oldest parliamentary democracy. To the contrary, British lawmakers from all parties have often threatened and sometimes pursued legal action against newspapers to stop them from publishing reports.
And so Mr. Singh is unlikely to be the last victim of Britain's libel laws. Settling scientific and political disputes through lawsuits, though, runs counter the very principles that have made Western progress possible. "The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error," Bertolt Brecht wrote in "The Life of Galileo."
It is time British politicians restrain the law so that wisdom prevails in the land, and not errors.
Then you're wrong.lowing wrote:
I will disagree.Bertster7 wrote:
It's not libellous if it's true though, so you couldn't consider it defamation. If were untrue, she could sue him.Blue Herring wrote:
I suppose one could consider it defamation in a civil case, but the most I see happening is a court ordered removal of the billboard.
I don't think the guy's a "tool", I think he was just pissed. I'd have a pretty negative reaction if I thought someone killed my baby without my consideration or consent too.
Ultimately, if you do something and someone else knows about it, they can talk about it, publicise it, whatever the hell they like. Clearly the guy in this instance is a prick, but this is a really, really clear cut case. He has done nothing wrong (other than being a twat).
This is how privacy laws should work. Ultimately the importance of free speech is far greater than the importance of individuals privacy. Look at the sort of bullshit problems you get with privacy laws (which don't work btw), superinjunctions and hyperinjuctions just lead to more problems than you had in the first place (nor do they make any sense).
They assert that it was defamatory to describe the Scott Tamkin
character as a slick, hard-drinking, extensive bondage/porn watching man who
feels his world drop out from him during the mortgage crisis. It was also
defamatory to state that “His clients have left him and his own house may be
foreclosed on. He is a suspect in his wife Melinda’s murder.” Similarly, it was
defamatory to state that the Melinda Tamkin character’s “death may have occurred
during kinky sex in which she was handcuffed to the bed.”
Not sure were you think you get the right to embarrass, bully, harass, mentally abuse another person, when clearly that is not the intent of what free speech was meant to accomplish.Bertster7 wrote:
Then you're wrong.lowing wrote:
I will disagree.Bertster7 wrote:
It's not libellous if it's true though, so you couldn't consider it defamation. If were untrue, she could sue him.
Ultimately, if you do something and someone else knows about it, they can talk about it, publicise it, whatever the hell they like. Clearly the guy in this instance is a prick, but this is a really, really clear cut case. He has done nothing wrong (other than being a twat).
This is how privacy laws should work. Ultimately the importance of free speech is far greater than the importance of individuals privacy. Look at the sort of bullshit problems you get with privacy laws (which don't work btw), superinjunctions and hyperinjuctions just lead to more problems than you had in the first place (nor do they make any sense).
OH whoops forgot to mention that the defendant won the case.Blue Herring wrote:
They assert that it was defamatory to describe the Scott Tamkin
character as a slick, hard-drinking, extensive bondage/porn watching man who
feels his world drop out from him during the mortgage crisis. It was also
defamatory to state that “His clients have left him and his own house may be
foreclosed on. He is a suspect in his wife Melinda’s murder.” Similarly, it was
defamatory to state that the Melinda Tamkin character’s “death may have occurred
during kinky sex in which she was handcuffed to the bed.”
You've answered your own question - free speech is tremendously important (for reasons so obvious I will not go into them here). Those things you mentioned are unpleasant inconveniences - very minor.lowing wrote:
Not sure were you think you get the right to embarrass, bully, harass, mentally abuse another person, when clearly that is not the intent of what free speech was meant to accomplish.Bertster7 wrote:
Then you're wrong.lowing wrote:
I will disagree.
