
I was sued for libel under an unjust law - capo
http://www.nature.com/news/i-was-sued-for-libel-under-an-unjust-law-1.10979
======
cletus
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>

[2]: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/8379196...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/8379196/New-rules-to-discourage-libel-tourism-in-Britain.html)

~~~
weel
English libel law is ridiculous, and yet it still hasn't gotten reformed.
Remember the 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?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _there's no such thing as "UK libel law," since Scots law is different_ //

If we're being pedantic shouldn't it be England-and-Wales libel law?

~~~
simonh
s/pedantic/welsh/

What the hell, my karma was getting a bit high anyway.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's actual until recently been a bit redundant as Wales was only really
created as a recognisable entity as it was annexed to England (thus becoming
part of England as any other county or region, Yorkshire for example).

I've not really researched if Wales exists as a country now only that someone
told me the laws establishing the Senedd and giving it powers had changed the
situation.

------
raphman
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>

~~~
duskwuff
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.

------
tokenadult
The linked article from Nature here

[http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-
reform...](http://www.nature.com/news/libel-win-reveals-need-for-
reform-1.10981)

and the accompanying Nature editorial

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7406/full/487139a.html)

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.

------
powertower
> 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>

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."

------
donretag
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
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/>

------
danielweber
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
>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?

~~~
ajross
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
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
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.

~~~
scott_s
As I stated above, and assuming he is a private citizen, he probably could win
that libel case.

~~~
ajross
That's a good point, I'd forgotten about the private citizen distinction.
Though again, the fact that the posited story was on the front page of the
newspaper would sort of be an existence proof that the target was a public
figure. Citizens whose lives are newsworthy are public, sort of by definition.

~~~
scott_s
I was assuming he was positing it as an absurd example: he is clearly not a
public figure, and was wrongly accused of something on the front page. Also,
the distinction between public figure and private citizen is clearly not
whether or not they are newsworthy; such a distinction, as you point out,
would always come up "public figure" by definition.

I was going to explain the rational used, but Wikipedia to the rescue:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure>

------
PeterWhittaker
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.

------
srean
Another case that HN'ers may be familiar with is that of 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...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-04/16/qa-with-simon-singh-
why-uk-libel-law-must-change)

Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science:

<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/>

------
jschuur
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-
li...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-libel-case-
dropped) [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-
la...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/10/libel-law)

See also: <http://www.libelreform.org>

~~~
excuse-me
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.

------
mootothemax
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
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.

~~~
drone
Really? I thought it was almost impossible to prove a _negative_.

"You eat babies in your spare time!"

"No, no I don't."

The 1st can produce a picture of the person eating a baby, how does the 2nd
prove that he doesn't eat babies?

If the person who had the claim made against them had to definitively prove
that beyond a doubt he doesn't eat babies - he'd have to have had someone
recording him for every minute of his waking life, including those moments
prior to the claim.

The only way to prove a negative is to run a (perhaps nearly) infinite number
of tests and never get that result.

~~~
ktizo
_Really? I thought it was almost impossible to prove a negative._

Go read Karl Popper on falsifiability.

~~~
drone
... and most of the examples shows proving a positive as well, and also
clearly exerts why the statement I said in my post is not falsifiable. Your
original statement, was, btw, "it is almost impossible to prove a positive."
So, how is it nearly impossible to prove "this swan is white," but highly
possible to prove "no swan has ever been black?"

I can prove there is a mouse that is blue and black on my desk, but I cannot
prove that there has never been a red and black mouse on my desk, I can only
assert such.

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

~~~
Zenst
You say that, yet justice and sanity prevailed.

~~~
samspot
Is it really just and sane when the defendant is out thousands of pounds even
after winning?

~~~
Zenst
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
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.

------
jpiasetz
Are American's protected by the SPEECH Act now?

