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Saturday, July 23, 2011

I'm Not The Only One


[Okay, granted, I'm not a billionaire with an endless deep pocket for attorneys--but perhaps Mr. Bacon and other people who have been victimized by these sleazeballs might be interested in my Model Statute I'm working on, which I have tentatively entitled the Protection From Anonymous Defamation Act (PADA) - HAC]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/09/us-billionaire-wikipedia-defamation US Billionaire Wins High Court Order Over Wikipedia Defamation

Louis Bacon claims comments on Wikipedia and two other sites defamed him – but forcing them to reveal names may be difficult

US billionaire Louis Bacon has won a court order telling Wikipedia and two other sites to reveal the names of commenters who allegedly defamed him. Photograph: Nick Harvey/WireImage

A billionaire US hedge fund manager has been given the green light by the high court in London to force three websites – including Wikipedia – to disclose the identities of online commenters alleged to have defamed him.

Louis Bacon, the founder and chief executive officer of Moore Capital Management, was given permission on Monday to use a UK court order to obtain the information from the US publishers behind Wikipedia, the Denver Post newspaper, and the popular blogging platform WordPress.

Bacon wants to launch defamation proceedings against a number of online commenters – all of whom use sobriquets like "gotbacon" and "TCasey82" – alleged to have posted libellous material about him on these websites.

In the high court on Monday, Mr Justice Tugendhat granted Bacon's application to serve a court order – known as a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) – by email against these websites. However, legal experts have told the Guardian that the US-based companies could legally ignore or refuse to comply with the orders.

US-born Bacon, who owns a property in London, was this weekend named the UK's wealthiest hedge fund manager by the Sunday Times Rich List. According to the paper, Bacon is now worth £1.1bn after a 69% rise in his personal fortune in the past 12 months.

Tugendhat said that the Wikimedia Foundation had told Bacon's solicitors, Schillings, that it would hand over details of the commenters if it was served with a court order – but later said that it would have to be a US subpoena, as opposed to a NPO brought in a UK court.

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, said Bacon would need a court order and that any defamatory material would be removed from its websites. The Denver Post had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Tugendhat said civil procedure rules allowed him to grant Bacon's application against the US defendants, but added: "In future claimants should put before the court evidence as to whether that method is permitted by the law of the country in which the claim form is to be served (or a good reason for not doing so), since if it is, service by an alternative method will be unnecessary."

A spokeswoman for London law firm Schillings said the case was brought in the UK high court – as opposed to a US court – because Bacon had made a similar case against the UK-based website host, justhost.com, last year. Justhost complied with that order.

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