That's news to me!
I have responded with the short letter below.
April 21, 2008
Dear Editor,
Regarding Karen Brownlee's piece "Sask. blogger caught in legal bind" published April 21, as one of the defendants in the many Crookes lawsuits, I am in a position to correct the erroneous claim that Crookes' lawsuits have been dismissed. All of Crookes' lawsuits remain before the courts in BC. All that has happened so far is that a few defendants have managed to have themselves removed from the suits. Yahoo demonstrated that Crookes failed to prove that the private material was published in BC, Warren de Simone was dismissed from the very important OpenPolitics.ca case as he was found to not be a publisher, and a service provider (Domains by proxy) has seemed to have settled.
All the cases remain, with the critical OpenPolitics.ca case going to trial this October. If the OpenPolitics.ca case is lost, it is possible that providers will be held responsible for user generated content they did not have a hand in authoring. Such a finding will threaten every blogger, every wiki author, and every service provider in Canada. Even those abroad are at risk as you do not have to be a Canadian citizen or even be living in Canada to sue here.
Canada's libel laws are desperately out of date, and unless those fighting against Crookes receive financial support, our laws may become even more restrictive, just in time for Kate McMillan to spend her donated largess on a lost cause.
Mark Francis
Defendant, Crookes v. Holloway et al.
http://Section15.blogspot.com
Please donate to the OpenPolitics.ca case following the instructions on the sidebar.
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Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 4/21/2008 01:17:00 PM
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