The British Columbia Supreme Court today dismissed with costs one of the Crookes libel lawsuits. The suit against Yahoo!, MySpace and a group of individual defendants, which centred on postings on a Yahoo Groups forum, was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. Yahoo successfully argued that it was not subject to B.C. jurisdiction in this case since it has no offices in Canada (as opposed to Yahoo Canada), is not registered to do business in Canada, and does not maintain servers for Yahoo Groups in Canada.
Given the lack of connection to Canada, the court ruled that Crookes needed to demonstrate that the alleged defamation was committed here. In order to do so, he needed to show that the allegedly defamatory postings were "accessed, downloaded, and read by someone in British Columbia." The judge concluded that Crookes failed to tender such evidence and therefore dismissed the case. Other arguments - including a real and substantial connection analysis or the jurisdictional clause in the Yahoo terms of use were not addressed by the court.
The National featured a lengthy report on Internet libel last night focusing on the Zeke's Gallery and Crookes' cases. The story, which did an excellent job of highlighting the core issues, has posted by LibelChill.ca on YouTube. I'm featured in the piece and wrote about these concerns earlier this year.
There are several reports (here, here, and here) that Wayne Crookes, who previously launched suits against a wide range of parties including Wikipedia, Yahoo, and a domain name registrar, has sued me in B.C. courts for defamation. I have not been served with the suit, but the reports indicate that I am being sued for an allegedly defamatory third party comment on my site that I took down and for writing about, and linking to, P2PNet.net, which in turn linked to another site that allegedly contained a defamatory posting. In other words, I'm reportedly being sued for maintaining a blogroll that links to a site that links to a site that contains some allegedly defamatory third party comments.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan announced yesterday that the government is imposing time allocation on the second reading debate on Bill C-11. That means debate on the bill should conclude on Friday and the bill will be sent to committee for further hearings and review. While the government's overuse of time allocation is a concern, sending C-11 to committee places the core issues on the table - will it amend the digital lock rules as so many are asking and/or will it cave to copyright lobby pressure and add SOPA-style amendments to the bill? Now is the time to speak out.Feb.08/12Comments (5)
Alexander Furnas explains
in the Atlantic why the broader implications of ACTA may make it as bad
as SOPA. Furnas notes "while many of the alarmists specific claims are
inaccurate, ACTA exposes the systemic danger in how international
intellectual property regulation has evolved over the last 20 years." Feb.07/12Comments (0)
Kris Kotarski writes an opinion
piece in the Calgary Herald that calls attention to the lobby panic
that leads to legislation like SOPA and ACTA.
Feb.07/12Comments (0)
The National Post featured an op-ed
from Jesse Kline
over the weekend that notes "the essential question that must be
addressed going forward is whether government regulation is needed to
protect industries that have failed to innovate." He says the answer is
no.
Feb.07/12Comments (3)
John Ibbitson discusses
the implications
for Canada of joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, noting it would
likely include surrendering Canadian sovereignty over copyright law. A
reminder that the government is currently consulting on the TPP.
Details on the agreement and participating here, here, and
here.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
Open Media has launched a new
campaign
against copyright reforms that threaten digital rights including the
prospect of website blocking, Internet termination, and digital locks.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
AccessNow is maintaining an excellent
map
of the protests planned across the continent on February 11th, which
has been designated an international day of action against ACTA. The
issue has attracted mainstream media attention (eg. New
York Times) and questions
emerge about the likelihood the treaty will receive the necessary
approvals for ratification.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
Entertainment software giant Ubisoft, who the Ontario government gave $263 million in
2009 to create 80 jobs per year over 10 years (or $328,750 per job),
has advised
its customers that its games may not work sometime this week due to its
reliance on digital locks and the migration of data servers. Feb.06/12Comments (4)
Last week Rogers advised
the CRTC that it plans to drop
Internet throttling for all customers by the end of the year. The
move was not unexpected given that its policy was an outlier
among all major Canadian ISPs. I'll have more to say on this
development soon.
Feb.06/12Comments (1)
