p2p news view / p2pnet: p2pnet is currently being sued for alleged libel by Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and Kazaa ceo Nikki Hemming. In the interests of freedom of speech, we’re determined to fight this case before a jury.

Here’s a take on the situation by Globe and Mail columnist Jack Kapica. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

CYBERIA: The price of publishing on the Web
By Jack Kapica - The Globe and Mail

We all thought the Web was a medium far cheaper than print. But that’s changing.

Increasingly, we’re seeing anti-defamation lawsuits being launched about on-line content — the latest being the one launched by Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and CEO Nikki Hemming against P2PNet.net, based in Lake Cowichan, on Vancouver Island. The suit is a little odd, since P2PNet.net is a champion of peer-to-peer file-sharing, which is the same business that Kazaa is in.

Officially, the suit alleges defamation about some content that site owner Jon Newton found in wide circulation, originating in a report by Associated Press. Tellingly, the suit also wants Mr. Newton to release the name of a person who posted a comment about Kazaa under a pseudonym on the P2PNet.net site. That poster appeared to know an awful lot about the case being fought in an Australian court by Sharman, and it’s likely Sharman desperately wants to find out who it was.

In his own defence, Mr. Newton says his site has no mechanism to track down the identity of the poster.

Aside from the merits of the P2PNet.net case, the situation has major repercussions for the rest of the Web. A former freelance reporter (he sold a number of medical stories to The Globe and Mail in the 1980s), Mr. Newton has little money and lives in a remote area. P2PNet.net, which he started as a hobby, has taken over all his time, he says, but he makes no money worth taking by lawyers.

In fact, Mr. Newton can’t even afford his own lawyer, which is why he’s trying to raise money via a PayPal account (by this morning, he has raised a whopping $360.78 from 11 donors).

Sharman clearly won’t get much financial satisfaction from Mr. Newton, but it will cost Mr. Newton a lot before Sharman goes away.

In the meantime, a similar situation faces far bigger fish, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN, AOL and Ask.com. They all feature sponsored links on their search websites, and security specialists at McAfee SiteAdviser recently reported that 8.5 per cent of those advertiser links were "risky," meaning they had some form of malicious code in them.

The problem here is that these search engines, each having prospered even better than I have, are not taking responsibility for the sponsored links. And it is just a matter of time before some aggressive lawyer decides to sue a search engine for the damage an ad does to someone’s machine.

Newspapers (and TV networks), however, are very sensitive to this. I have seen many occasions in which advertisers have been banned for various reasons. But the process of selling an ad and vetting its contents requires eyeballs, and eyeballs cost money to hire. Which is why newspapers are still more reputable.

In both these cases, the impoverished Mr. Newton and the filthy rich search engines, did not budget for the unexpected. And they’re finding that not taking responsibility can be very costly.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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