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Digital Top Stories
ACS:Law squabble with file-sharing news site over “wanker” name-calling
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 24 March 2010
I’ve just finished a law degree, but don’t remember the section called “how to be an idiot”. I’m assuming I just missed it. It must be in there somewhere, given how many lawyers are idiots (though not all the lovely music lawyers who read CMU, who must also have been playing truant on the day idiot lessons were delivered at their respective law schools).
Anyway, ACS:Law, the previously reported London-based legal firm which has been pursuing RIAA-style sue-the-fans legal action against file-sharers in the UK, recently got heavy with US-based tech website Slyck.com, a site which specialises in covering everything to do with file-sharing fun times.
It seems that the legal firm was getting rather sensitive about all the criticism that had appeared online regards its file-sharing litigation work, especially claims by those who had received legal papers from the company that ACS’s lawyers were being rather heavy handed.
They were especially bothered about some of the slatings they’d received from users of Slyck.com’s message boards, some of which, they reckoned, constituted defamation under UK libel laws.
Among the eleven things that specifically offended ACS, and which were brought to the attention of Slyck.com’s editor, was a post where one of ACS’s lawyers was referred to as a “wanker”, and another where the law firm’s ‘five point plan’ to tackling file-sharing was referred to as a “wank plan”. So far, so undefamatory. Slyck haven’t revealed ACS’s other specific complaints, possibly because they actually did constitute defamation, possibly because they weren’t as funny, possibly because they didn’t involve the word ‘wank’.
Either way, ACS were insisting all such remarks be removed from Slyck’s message boards, otherwise the New York-based website would be sued under UK libel laws. Slyck quickly consulted the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who did not concur with ACS’s viewpoint that Slyck could be held liable for its message board users’ comments, even if said comments were defamatory.
The EFF also pointed out that while ACS could try to sue Slyck through the English courts, the UK’s libel laws have become something of an in-joke among the legal profession abroad, especially in America, where the local courts have tended not to support British lawyers who try to sue US-based writers or publishers in the London courts.
The EFF responded to ACS on Slyck’s behalf as follows: “After reviewing your letter and the cited content on Slyck.com, it is clear that you have not articulated a cognisable claim and our client therefore does not intend to remove any material from its website in response to your threats. Second, in any case, the statements to which you object do not appear to be defamatory in nature and therefore are protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The statements are at worst hyperbolic opinions and therefore cannot be found to be defamatory. An online poster calling your firm’s ‘Five Point Plan’ a ‘wank plan’ or stating that he or she hopes that you ‘choke on your mince pie’ hardly subjects the speaker to legal liability”.
They continued: “Third, even if your claim was actionable in the UK, the judgment could not be enforced in the United States. Foreign judgments are unenforceable in the United States if, for example, they are inconsistent with the values enshrined in the First Amendment. See Yahoo! Inc v La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et L’Antisemitisme. The posted speech is obviously protected under US law and any attempt to enforce a judgment to the contrary against my client will be futile”.
ACS are yet to respond. Of course, ‘wanker’ shout outs aside, we don’t know what the other offending messageboard remarks said, or whether they really were defamatory under English law. But we do know that in this here modern world it really isn’t worth bothering yourselves about people dissing you on a message board written and read by people who will automatically hate you because of what you do, especially when said board is based in another jurisdiction, even if, technically speaking, you might have an arguable legal right to stop them.
That is common sense as far as I can see; though it’s possible common sense is surgically removed from aspiring legal types during the aforementioned idiot course (aka wank class) at law school.
PS: Do note, we’re not aware of any UK record labels using ACS’s services to tackle file-sharing, and back in January record label trade body the BPI said their methods were “at odds with the proportionate and graduated response advocated by BPI and proposed in the Digital Economy Bill”.
