NationStates Jolt Archive

This refers to Sheffield Wednesday Football Club
The club has had serious problems, on and off the pitch, and many of its fans use an internet forum - owlstalk.co.uk - to discuss them. They make the kind of comments you would expect to find on any talk board, and which would normally be forgotten within 15 minutes. Two and half years ago the club launched its first suit. Only now have the people who posted these comments emerged blinking from the labyrinthine nightmare of English law.

Here are some of the comments over which the club complained. "What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we've become." "Another day, another blunder. I doubt even Leeds were in such a mess this time last summer, and look what happened to them." "I am waiting with bated breath to hear who the Chuckle Brothers have signed after their trip to watch players abroad. With the amount of money they have to spend and the wages they can offer the best we can hope for is that little known Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel."

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday's lawyers to be "false and seriously defamatory messages" which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/17/matthiasrath.medialaw

(Now even if you don't follow football, as I don't, you would realise that those comments are actually quite restrained....)

Short of a change to the law, is there any protection against this kind of thing?

http://blog.dreamhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/serious.jpg

Remind people that defamation laws still count on the internet?

Same sort of thing that kept Robert Maxwell afloat for so many years despite the fact he was an out and out criminal bully.

Still, the cases were thrown out in this instance and I can't see fault in that, I doubt there's much you can say about Sheffield Wednesday that isn't true, they've barnyard doors on their training pitches to help strikers hit one from 2 yards.

The world holds its breath.

Britain should perhaps change its libel laws to put the onus on the accuser to prove that the writings were both false and malicious in intent.
I suspect that US laws are far more lax on libel

Britain should perhaps change its libel laws to put the onus on the accuser to prove that the writings were both false and malicious in intent.
I suspect that US laws are far more lax on libel

US laws are. The UK libel laws are not only bordering on the ridiculous but have well crossed the border and are moving at a brisk pace towards the downright insane.

This said I'd rather have a middle ground than remove them altogether, I can see a reason for libel laws, false accusations once made are very difficult to clear up, even if innocence is proven and can potentially be incredibly damaging. However burden of proof should use the Balance of Probabilities, as used in most civil cases, rather than the burden being on the defendant.

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday's lawyers to be "false and seriously defamatory messages" which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club.
:eek:

The only libelouse thing I can see in any of these comments is possibly this one. '....Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel'

The only libelouse thing I can see in any of these comments is possibly this one. '....Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel'

Yeah, that brothel should sue cos he never got nowhere with any of their ladies, that's how bad he was.

Same sort of thing that kept Robert Maxwell afloat for so many years ....

Not once he fell off the yacht.

Whereas I don't think they constitute defamation/libel or whatever, what I think unfortunately matters not a wank in a court of law. I was hoping for some opinions on whether it constituted grounds for a suit by any Brit legal types amongst us....

The thing is that even given the eventual opinion of the court, these people have had to take legal advice and had the threat of a court case over them for two and a half years. Essentially they've been given the equivalent of a hiding and have seemingly no come back. It just strikes me as being a hole in the law, in that its a 'frivolous' case, but with no penalties for bringing it.

I seem to recall conventional economic theory is that you don't sue your paying customers. Not unless they've really fucked up somehow.

Britain should perhaps change its libel laws to put the onus on the accuser to prove that the writings were both false and malicious in intent.
I suspect that US laws are far more lax on libel

Britain can't do anything, because it's not a country.

I tend towards United anyway, so who cares about Wednesday?:p

US laws are. The UK libel laws are not only bordering on the ridiculous but have well crossed the border and are moving at a brisk pace towards the downright insane.

This said I'd rather have a middle ground than remove them altogether, I can see a reason for libel laws, false accusations once made are very difficult to clear up, even if innocence is proven and can potentially be incredibly damaging. However burden of proof should use the Balance of Probabilities, as used in most civil cases, rather than the burden being on the defendant.

In general, the U.S. system requires, for libel and slander:

1. Publication - oral or physically embodied dissemination to others
2. of a false statement of fact - statements of opinion or belief are not actionable
3. That harms reputation - proof of actual damage is usually going to be required - you have to show real harm and some form of recoverable damage, like lost profits, a need for counseling, etc.
4. And, due to the 1st Amendment, if the person allegedly libled/slandered is a "public figure" - someone of notoriety and fame who has injected himself into the public eye and holds himself out for public scrutiny and not just a private person, he must prove there was a malicious intent involved in the publication of the false information.

Wow. I say nastier things about our sports teams, and I know people who are about 2000x nastier to sports teams.


Poor babies. Its official. UK athletes are pussies.

Wow. I say nastier things about our sports teams, and I know people who are about 2000x nastier to sports teams.


Poor babies. Its official. UK athletes are pussies.
I assure you that what Nodinia posted was 2000x censored.

Wow. I say nastier things about our sports teams, and I know people who are about 2000x nastier to sports teams.


Poor babies. Its official. UK athletes are pussies.

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say it's the boardroom suits doing the sueing.