Linking Can Cause Discomfort
Monday, June 4, 2007 at 4:20 am
This story might seem like nothing, but it has the potential of creating a case law that could litterally cut the grass from under the feet of many bloggers.In Montreal, Zeke’s Gallery is a place where unkown and experimental artists can show their art. Chris Hand, Zeke’s owner also writes a blog about arts to promote his gallery. He also comments on issues pertaining to artists, among which are selling of paintings, and of course, frauds.
November 25 2006, Chris wrote an article and linked to a couple of stories published from reliable sources (National Post, CBC, Radio-Canada, etc.) about a Montreal car dealer who “had previous dealings with the Montreal Mafia and boasted a mild criminal past”, mentionning he was implicated in a mob probe by multiple law enforcement agencies. He then went on to report that the said car dealer was now doing business with a “fellow” gallery owner who tried to sell some fake paintings to Loto-Québec, with a link to this story as well.
After a while, things went bad. Apparently, the people mentionned on Zeke’s blog were not happy at all about these allegations and asked him to remove all these “false” stories about them. The thing is though that poor Zeke only used the information from what was linked from reliable mass media sources! Why didn’t these people sue the mass medias then?
After receiving a couple of cease and desist letters, he was asked to go to court where the judge granted the plaintiff an injunction against him.
The judgement called for Zeke’s Gallery removal of offending material from his blog, though there is no mention that the source (National Post, CBC, Radio-Canada) has to comply with this injunction. Isn’t it odd?
Since I cannot afford a lawsuit, I will refrain myself from doing any name dropping, but here’s a link to an article from Hour.ca that has all the names of those who cannot be named.
I guess bloggers from outside Quebec and Canada could do Zeke a favour in publishing this information everywhere on the Web in protest, thus de Facto rendering the judge’s injunction ineffective. But I would never call for bloggers to do that. Oh no.
There is a difference between reporting facts published by known and reliable sources, and libel. Right?
Freedom!
brem
via Julie Bélanger
tags: blogger, bloggers, rights, law, libel, diffamation, injunction, quebec, montreal, canada, zeke, zeke’s gallery
JMartyne shares this opinion with us:
June 4th, 2007 at 9:59 amÇa rappelle une époque pas très lointaine, où on tuait les messagers…
Pag shares this opinion with us:
June 4th, 2007 at 12:20 pmPour les législateurs, c’est le problème avec internet: la liberté de la presse n’a jamais été prévue que pour les gens assez riche pour s’acheter une presse. Si le petit peuple pouvait s’exprimer librement de la même façon, où irait-on?
Zelaurent shares this opinion with us:
June 6th, 2007 at 12:28 pmLe fond du problème est que Zeke a fait du buzz autour de rumeurs qu’il colporte sur un de ses concurrents. Je pense que c’est pour ça qu’ils n’ont pas bien apprécié. À mon humble avis, dans “l’affaire Zeke”, il est moins question de censure que de compétition d’affaires.
brem shares this opinion with us:
June 6th, 2007 at 3:32 pmZeLaurent: oui, je crois que tu as raison sur le fond, i.e. pourquoi il y a une poursuite. Mais n’empêche, ce ne sont pas des rumeurs, mais bien des informations disponibles sur le Web par des sites de grands médias. C’est surtout cette partie de l’histoire qui m’inquiète.
Bruce Walls shares this opinion with us:
June 7th, 2007 at 11:20 pmGoes to show how quickly things get around and how careful you have got to be. What started out as a comment in an article finishes up with a hefty lawyers bill.
brem shares this opinion with us:
June 8th, 2007 at 2:53 amIndeed. However, it’s hard to prevent these when you don’t know where the laswuit will come from. It can come from your neighbour, or a big corporation.
heri shares this opinion with us:
June 11th, 2007 at 8:39 pmje pense que la liberté d’expression est en jeu. comme tout le monde le sait, un blog n’est pas un journal, c’est un site où l’on publie ses opinions personnels. jusqu’à preuve du contraire, on a encore ce droit au canada.
en plus, comme tu le fais remarquer, ce n’est pas comme s’il inventait une histoire.
je trouve qu’on ne parle pas assez de cas. ma version ici (en anglais)
http://montrealtechwatch.com/2007/04/call-to-bloggers-and-everyone-involved.html
Fagstein » Zeke’s Gallery scandal explained shares this opinion with us:
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