6 ms·

I was sued for libel under an unjust law

118 points by capo 14y ago

donretag 14y ago
Great news, but I wished the article went into more detail about the original lawsuit and the strategy used to win the case. To me, the big story in all of this is Elsevier’s "package sales strategy". They are a much bigger foe, so accusing them of wrong doings directly would be a much bigger fight. Their dominance in the industry will hopefully soon evaporate.
- impendia 14y ago
  Tim Gowers and 12,325 others (including myself) have stood up to accuse them quite directly of wrongdoing, with precisely the aim you suggest. http://www.thecostofknowledge.com/ http://www.thecostofknowledge.com/
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  Yes -- if it weren't for the package sales strategy, this loser with his own journal would be writing for no one but himself (and I'm sure Elsevier wouldn't pay him to do that). This is a great example of how Elsevier uses its position in the industry to extract money from universities far out of proportion to the value they provide. I hope academia gets fed up with this soon and stops paying.
danielweber 14y ago
Hence the joke "I'm going to sue you in England." In America the burden is on the person being defamed to prove his case, including that the stated facts are unjust. We have a lot of crazies here saying crazy things. It's wonderful.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  >burden is on the person being defamed to prove his case, including that the stated facts are unjust So if I say you are a child molester - you have to prove that you aren't ! How exactly were you intending to do that?
  - URSpider94 14y ago
    It's not that black-and-white. You could definitely win such a case in the USA, if you could show as the plaintiff that you have never been accused of such a crime, and that the publication of such information caused you harm. In the US, we grant much more latitude for commentary on public figures, and on comment on professional duties. If you were sued over writing an expose on the professional behavior of an editor of a journal, based on interviews with peers, it would be nearly impossible to get a court to even hear that case.
  - ajross 14y ago
    You don't "have to" do anything. Ignoring criticism is always an option; you can rely on the audience to be able to tell truth from falsehood in many cases. People lie, and say mean stuff. Must there be a remedy for that built into the legal system? The US choice (and this stems directly from the first amendment) is broadly no. You can sue for damages from libel, but you need to be able to prove to the court that the offender actually knew what they were saying was wrong. Otherwise, they were just stating their opinion, however misguided it might have been. Opinions are protected speech.
    - excuse-me 14y ago
      The legal system should probably get involved when there is an imbalance of power. Yes if an anon user on HN says another anon user on HN is a vi user instead of an emacs user - so what? But if the NYT runs a front cover accusing me of some terrible crime, do I have to prove that I lost financialy because of it eg. I didn't get a new job, in order to get more than a retraction at the bottom of page 9?
      - ajross 14y ago
        If the Times truly and reasonably believed you were guilty, then you weren't libeled under US law. If they lied, then you have a case (and you don't have to "lose" anything financially per se, damages are more general than that). I guess that doesn't seem to bad a compromise to me.
mootothemax 14y ago
I'm a big fan of the English libel law; to my mind, if you write something about someone, you should bear responsibility for ensuring that what you write is true, and have the proof to back it up. Placing the responsibility on the person you're writing about seems just plain unfair to me. The only problem with the English libel laws is it takes so long to resolve a case. I don't understand why it takes so much time and expense, and would prefer this aspect to be fixed first - if at all possible.
- ktizo 14y ago
  If everyone had to prove that what they said was absolutely true before saying anything then nothing would get said as it is almost impossible to prove a positive.
  - fauldsh 14y ago
    I have no real knowledge of the law. But I thought it was more along the lines of, you have to have sufficient evidence. If it transpires you were wrong you're ok as long as you had good reason to think it was true. I'm very intrigued to know how exactly the law works now.
    - mootothemax 14y ago
      I'm very intrigued to know how exactly the law works now. I came across the following basic explanation a while ago, seems like a pretty decent write-up: There are two versions of defamation, libel and slander. Libel is when the defamation is written down (including email, bulletin boards and websites), and slander is when the incident relates to words spoken. In the UK, if someone thinks that what you wrote about them is either defamatory or damaging, the onus will be entirely on you to prove that your comments are true in court. In other words, if you make the claim, you've got to prove it! For example, if you said Peter Sutcliffe had never paid his TV licence in his life that would not be defamatory - or it is very unlikely to be. However, if you said the same about TV boss Greg Dyke, that would be. Why? Because Peter Sutcliffe's reputation will not be damaged by the TV licence revelation (he is after all a mass murderer). Of course, his lawyers would still be free to bring the case to court, but it is very unlikely they would succeed. Greg Dyke, on the other hand, runs the BBC , so to say he wilfully doesn't pay his TV licence could have a seriously detrimental effect on his career. He could be fired or his reputation damaged (note:Dyke has now left the BBC). Continued here: http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html
PeterWhittaker 14y ago
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. In 1817, William Hone, a satirist, defended himself against multiple charges under Britain's then-antiquated libel laws. He won, despite all odds. Read Ben Wilson's recent "The Laughter of Triumph: William Hone and the Fight for the Free Press" for more. What boggles my mind, what truly causes me little conniptions, is that even after supposed reform of the various UK libel laws, they are still used today to silence one's opponents. IANAL, etc., but these laws do seem, uh, heavy handed and unfair, arming the slighted with fully automatic sledgehammer launchers to use against any foe, real or perceived.
cletus 14y ago
Having the burden of proof on the defendant is a terrible idea. The imbalance in the UK libel system has given rise to libel tourism [1]. This is something the UK has been seeking to reform [2]. If you're a public figure or an organisation then we have to accept that some people are going to say some crazy things otherwise it would be too easy to use the courts to silence legitimate criticism. As for Elsevier's package pricing strategy, it's interesting how similar this is to how cable companies price offerings. In the case of cable companies (IMHO) we need structural separation between those that own the physical network and those that provide services on it. Around the world telecommunications policy is slowly heading in this direction in relation to the "last mile". In the case of academic journals it seems academics are victims of themselves basically. Prestigious journals carry weight because academics give them weight. Promotions and continued employment sometimes revolve around getting published. At that point the academics are captive to those that provide those journals. Previously distribution was a key problem. Now obviously it isn't. Some disciplines have taken a far more open approach to publication and peer review. This problem will probably be solved as more disciplines get organized and go their own way. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism [2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8379196/New-rules-to-discourage-libel-tourism-in-Britain.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8379196...
- weel 14y ago
  English libel law is ridiculous, and yet it still hasn't gotten reformed. Remember the McLibel case? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_Case) I don't exactly sympathize with the panicky rhetoric of the pamphlet that was about, but nothing in it comes anywhere close to the kind of thing libel law legitimately protects against, and it looks like stuff that would be perfectly legal to say in more reasonable jurisdictions like Holland or the US. But yes, even more outrageous than English libel law (there's no such thing as "UK libel law," since Scots law is different) is this Libel tourism business. I wonder what it would take to get this reformed. Any British people on here who have a better view of the local political climate? I somehow suspect that a push from local constituent carries more weight in British politics in today's climate than ECHR judgments like the one in the McLibel case. Is there anyone strongly pushing for these strict laws, or is it just a case of inertia combined with nobody pushing very hard against it?
tokenadult 14y ago
The linked article from Nature here http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-reform-1.10981 http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-reform... and the accompanying Nature editorial http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a... give a lot more background on the details of this particular case, and on which defenses to libel claims are available under British law. Proposals for legal reform in Britain are also discussed at those links.
raphman 14y ago
Nice. This reminds me of one of El Naschie's most awesome papers, published in 'his' Elsevier journal "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals": http://www.el-naschie.net/bilder/file/Photo-Gallery.pdf http://www.el-naschie.net/bilder/file/Photo-Gallery.pdf
- duskwuff 14y ago
  Linked PDF is an 'article' in "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals" titled "Photo Gallery", which is exactly what the title suggests: a gallery of photos of El Naschie with colleagues, photos of El Naschie on vacation, and one screenshot of a web page. Truly a pioneering piece of research, this.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
rayiner 14y ago
The hilarious thing is that English libel law has been shitty and everyone has known it for literally hundreds of years.
- Zenst 14y ago
  You say that, yet justice and sanity prevailed.
  - samspot 14y ago
    Is it really just and sane when the defendant is out thousands of pounds even after winning?
    - Zenst 14y ago
      Were are you pulling that fact from as the that is not the case under UK libel law. The winner gets there costs covered by the loser - realy rather simple and fair.
      - samspot 14y ago
        According to the article, this guy is only expecting about 70% of his costs to be covered in the end. He said he was expecting to be out around 10,000 pounds.
jschuur 14y ago
For another case of sanity reigning supreme after an English libel law suit, there's Simon Singh's victory against the British Chiropractic Association, after an article he wrote in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-libel-case-dropped http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-li... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-law http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-la... See also: http://www.libelreform.org http://www.libelreform.org
- excuse-me 14y ago
  That wasn't a victory - they withdrew their suit after he had spent 250,000 defending himself. And since it never went to trial, there is nothing to stop them suing him again tomorrow, or picking on a less well defended or less public figure.
srean 14y ago
Another case that HN'ers may be familiar with is that of Simon Singh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh Its a joy to read his books and he hangs out on HN at times too. Why UK libel laws must change: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/16/qa-with-simon-singh-why-uk-libel-law-must-change http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/16/qa-with-simon... Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/
powertower 14y ago
> many of which pondered the texture of time and space. Physicists questioned the quality of the papers and the lack of proper peer review. Being curious about his theories, I've located this... http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mohamed_El_Naschie http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mohamed_El_Naschie Which brought me to this... "E-infinity theory" "By introducing a space-time which is not only four-dimensional but also infinite-dimensional, and by using hyperbolic random fractals, I was able to precisely model this stormy ocean in which relativity and quantum mechanics can live side by side."
jpiasetz 14y ago
Are American's protected by the SPEECH Act now?

118 points by capo 14y ago

Great news, but I wished the article went into more detail about the original lawsuit and the strategy used to win the case. To me, the big story in all of this is Elsevier’s "package sales strategy". They are a much bigger foe, so accusing them of wrong doings directly would be a much bigger fight. Their dominance in the industry will hopefully soon evaporate.

impendia 14y ago
Tim Gowers and 12,325 others (including myself) have stood up to accuse them quite directly of wrongdoing, with precisely the aim you suggest. http://www.thecostofknowledge.com/ http://www.thecostofknowledge.com/
ScottBurson 14y ago
Yes -- if it weren't for the package sales strategy, this loser with his own journal would be writing for no one but himself (and I'm sure Elsevier wouldn't pay him to do that). This is a great example of how Elsevier uses its position in the industry to extract money from universities far out of proportion to the value they provide. I hope academia gets fed up with this soon and stops paying.

danielweber 14y ago

Hence the joke "I'm going to sue you in England." In America the burden is on the person being defamed to prove his case, including that the stated facts are unjust. We have a lot of crazies here saying crazy things. It's wonderful.

excuse-me 14y ago
>burden is on the person being defamed to prove his case, including that the stated facts are unjust So if I say you are a child molester - you have to prove that you aren't ! How exactly were you intending to do that?
- URSpider94 14y ago
  It's not that black-and-white. You could definitely win such a case in the USA, if you could show as the plaintiff that you have never been accused of such a crime, and that the publication of such information caused you harm. In the US, we grant much more latitude for commentary on public figures, and on comment on professional duties. If you were sued over writing an expose on the professional behavior of an editor of a journal, based on interviews with peers, it would be nearly impossible to get a court to even hear that case.
- ajross 14y ago
  You don't "have to" do anything. Ignoring criticism is always an option; you can rely on the audience to be able to tell truth from falsehood in many cases. People lie, and say mean stuff. Must there be a remedy for that built into the legal system? The US choice (and this stems directly from the first amendment) is broadly no. You can sue for damages from libel, but you need to be able to prove to the court that the offender actually knew what they were saying was wrong. Otherwise, they were just stating their opinion, however misguided it might have been. Opinions are protected speech.
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    The legal system should probably get involved when there is an imbalance of power. Yes if an anon user on HN says another anon user on HN is a vi user instead of an emacs user - so what? But if the NYT runs a front cover accusing me of some terrible crime, do I have to prove that I lost financialy because of it eg. I didn't get a new job, in order to get more than a retraction at the bottom of page 9?
    - ajross 14y ago
      If the Times truly and reasonably believed you were guilty, then you weren't libeled under US law. If they lied, then you have a case (and you don't have to "lose" anything financially per se, damages are more general than that). I guess that doesn't seem to bad a compromise to me.

mootothemax 14y ago

I'm a big fan of the English libel law; to my mind, if you write something about someone, you should bear responsibility for ensuring that what you write is true, and have the proof to back it up. Placing the responsibility on the person you're writing about seems just plain unfair to me. The only problem with the English libel laws is it takes so long to resolve a case. I don't understand why it takes so much time and expense, and would prefer this aspect to be fixed first - if at all possible.

ktizo 14y ago
If everyone had to prove that what they said was absolutely true before saying anything then nothing would get said as it is almost impossible to prove a positive.
- fauldsh 14y ago
  I have no real knowledge of the law. But I thought it was more along the lines of, you have to have sufficient evidence. If it transpires you were wrong you're ok as long as you had good reason to think it was true. I'm very intrigued to know how exactly the law works now.
  - mootothemax 14y ago
    I'm very intrigued to know how exactly the law works now. I came across the following basic explanation a while ago, seems like a pretty decent write-up: There are two versions of defamation, libel and slander. Libel is when the defamation is written down (including email, bulletin boards and websites), and slander is when the incident relates to words spoken. In the UK, if someone thinks that what you wrote about them is either defamatory or damaging, the onus will be entirely on you to prove that your comments are true in court. In other words, if you make the claim, you've got to prove it! For example, if you said Peter Sutcliffe had never paid his TV licence in his life that would not be defamatory - or it is very unlikely to be. However, if you said the same about TV boss Greg Dyke, that would be. Why? Because Peter Sutcliffe's reputation will not be damaged by the TV licence revelation (he is after all a mass murderer). Of course, his lawyers would still be free to bring the case to court, but it is very unlikely they would succeed. Greg Dyke, on the other hand, runs the BBC , so to say he wilfully doesn't pay his TV licence could have a seriously detrimental effect on his career. He could be fired or his reputation damaged (note:Dyke has now left the BBC). Continued here: http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html

PeterWhittaker 14y ago

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. In 1817, William Hone, a satirist, defended himself against multiple charges under Britain's then-antiquated libel laws. He won, despite all odds. Read Ben Wilson's recent "The Laughter of Triumph: William Hone and the Fight for the Free Press" for more. What boggles my mind, what truly causes me little conniptions, is that even after supposed reform of the various UK libel laws, they are still used today to silence one's opponents. IANAL, etc., but these laws do seem, uh, heavy handed and unfair, arming the slighted with fully automatic sledgehammer launchers to use against any foe, real or perceived.

cletus 14y ago

Having the burden of proof on the defendant is a terrible idea. The imbalance in the UK libel system has given rise to libel tourism [1]. This is something the UK has been seeking to reform [2]. If you're a public figure or an organisation then we have to accept that some people are going to say some crazy things otherwise it would be too easy to use the courts to silence legitimate criticism. As for Elsevier's package pricing strategy, it's interesting how similar this is to how cable companies price offerings. In the case of cable companies (IMHO) we need structural separation between those that own the physical network and those that provide services on it. Around the world telecommunications policy is slowly heading in this direction in relation to the "last mile". In the case of academic journals it seems academics are victims of themselves basically. Prestigious journals carry weight because academics give them weight. Promotions and continued employment sometimes revolve around getting published. At that point the academics are captive to those that provide those journals. Previously distribution was a key problem. Now obviously it isn't. Some disciplines have taken a far more open approach to publication and peer review. This problem will probably be solved as more disciplines get organized and go their own way. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism [2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8379196/New-rules-to-discourage-libel-tourism-in-Britain.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8379196...

weel 14y ago
English libel law is ridiculous, and yet it still hasn't gotten reformed. Remember the McLibel case? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_Case) I don't exactly sympathize with the panicky rhetoric of the pamphlet that was about, but nothing in it comes anywhere close to the kind of thing libel law legitimately protects against, and it looks like stuff that would be perfectly legal to say in more reasonable jurisdictions like Holland or the US. But yes, even more outrageous than English libel law (there's no such thing as "UK libel law," since Scots law is different) is this Libel tourism business. I wonder what it would take to get this reformed. Any British people on here who have a better view of the local political climate? I somehow suspect that a push from local constituent carries more weight in British politics in today's climate than ECHR judgments like the one in the McLibel case. Is there anyone strongly pushing for these strict laws, or is it just a case of inertia combined with nobody pushing very hard against it?

tokenadult 14y ago

The linked article from Nature here http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-reform-1.10981 http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-reform... and the accompanying Nature editorial http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a... give a lot more background on the details of this particular case, and on which defenses to libel claims are available under British law. Proposals for legal reform in Britain are also discussed at those links.

raphman 14y ago

Nice. This reminds me of one of El Naschie's most awesome papers, published in 'his' Elsevier journal "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals": http://www.el-naschie.net/bilder/file/Photo-Gallery.pdf http://www.el-naschie.net/bilder/file/Photo-Gallery.pdf

duskwuff 14y ago
Linked PDF is an 'article' in "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals" titled "Photo Gallery", which is exactly what the title suggests: a gallery of photos of El Naschie with colleagues, photos of El Naschie on vacation, and one screenshot of a web page. Truly a pioneering piece of research, this.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

rayiner 14y ago

The hilarious thing is that English libel law has been shitty and everyone has known it for literally hundreds of years.

Zenst 14y ago
You say that, yet justice and sanity prevailed.
- samspot 14y ago
  Is it really just and sane when the defendant is out thousands of pounds even after winning?
  - Zenst 14y ago
    Were are you pulling that fact from as the that is not the case under UK libel law. The winner gets there costs covered by the loser - realy rather simple and fair.
    - samspot 14y ago
      According to the article, this guy is only expecting about 70% of his costs to be covered in the end. He said he was expecting to be out around 10,000 pounds.

jschuur 14y ago

For another case of sanity reigning supreme after an English libel law suit, there's Simon Singh's victory against the British Chiropractic Association, after an article he wrote in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-libel-case-dropped http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-li... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-law http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-la... See also: http://www.libelreform.org http://www.libelreform.org

excuse-me 14y ago
That wasn't a victory - they withdrew their suit after he had spent 250,000 defending himself. And since it never went to trial, there is nothing to stop them suing him again tomorrow, or picking on a less well defended or less public figure.

srean 14y ago

Another case that HN'ers may be familiar with is that of Simon Singh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh Its a joy to read his books and he hangs out on HN at times too. Why UK libel laws must change: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/16/qa-with-simon-singh-why-uk-libel-law-must-change http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/16/qa-with-simon... Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/

powertower 14y ago

> many of which pondered the texture of time and space. Physicists questioned the quality of the papers and the lack of proper peer review. Being curious about his theories, I've located this... http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mohamed_El_Naschie http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mohamed_El_Naschie Which brought me to this... "E-infinity theory" "By introducing a space-time which is not only four-dimensional but also infinite-dimensional, and by using hyperbolic random fractals, I was able to precisely model this stormy ocean in which relativity and quantum mechanics can live side by side."

jpiasetz 14y ago

Are American's protected by the SPEECH Act now?