I recently acquired the domain name boards.org.uk so I hope to create a new site there shortly. In the meantime, I’ve also bought phpboards.co.uk which I’ve rebranded as free.boards.org.uk.
Archive for July, 2006
LEGAL THREAT: MCD stung by criticism
Website is curbed in Oxegen row
Evening Herald, 26th July 2006
by Mark Hilliard
MCD has sent a solicitor’s letter to a popular website after several users criticised conditions at the Oxegen music festival.
Concert goers had flooded the site with numerous allegations relating to a range of anti-social incidents in the camp sites.
But shortly after the contentious observations appeared, Boards.ie told its users that a legal communication had been received on behalf of the promoter warning against any further defamatory comments.
The move sparked outrage and criticisms of MCD itself, leading the system administrator to completely close down all debate on the subject.
An official posting simply stated that it was “closing this thread before it slips in the wrong direction.
“Apologies to those who just want a good discussion, but despite being asked not to post any more (perceived) defamatory remarks about MCD and Oxegen they just keep coming.
“Although I am not happy to do so, this thread is being closed with the best interests of this forum’s users and of the other 70,000 users of Boards.ie.”
The initial legal communication appeared mid-week and warned the system administrator against publishing any content that might be seen to be defamatory or libelous.
It is unclear how accurate the criticisms were regarding the event but MCD were unhappy about it publication of material it deemed to be defamatory.
A spokesperson for MCD said: “As this is an ongoing legal issue we have no comment to make.”
Requests by users of Boards.ie for the publication of the original legal letter were treated with caution by the system administrator.
It stated: “There is to be no discussion of MCD or Oxegen on this thread. Any poster who tries to discuss either will get a week’s ban and this thread will be locked.”
But the move has in turn sparked furious debate.
The argument evokes memories of the recent scandal surrounding Ratemyteacher.ie in which students gave on-line reviews of staff in Irish schools.
However, music industry sources have insisted that MCD have no difficulty with fair and balanced criticism and comment on events but that in this case the matter was sparked by very serious, unsubstantiated allegations.
I have little more to say on this MCD issue at the moment (thanks to Vexorg who has mainly been dealing with it), and as I’ve blogged, we have had a number of other legal threats issued against us recently.
We still feel that users are responsible for their own comments (just as someone on the radio [Edit: Andrew says below that radio stations are liable :(] would be responsible for stuff they say, without the communications channel being liable). However, we will happily remove defamatory messages as soon as we are notified of them as they obviously must be deleted, but we’d prefer if these legal proceedings aren’t issued as we don’t want the actions of a few people to ruin this service for 70,000 others.
Does Google get a legal letter for every defamatory message posted on its Google Groups service? With millions of users it must happen all the time…
More at boards.ie (Discussion of MCD and their concerts = completely banned this week - boards.ie), Indymedia Ireland (Oxegen, Poxegen: The Modern Rock and Roll Experience.), P45 (MCD covering up allegedly), Irish Independent (How we feared for our lives at Oxegen . . . festival-goers relive their nightmare), Blurred Keys (MCD threatens Indo and board.ie over Oxegen music festival campsite claims), Soundtracks for Them (Beware The MCD Hoover.) You can also search Planet Journals for Oxegen.
Cool! Nice one Ross…
Socialtext, the first Wiki company, releases Socialtext Open at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON). Available for immediate download, Socialtext Open is the first open source wiki with a commercial venture as its primary contributor. Over 2,000 businesses run Socialtext Wiki products today as a hosted service or appliance.
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Socialtext Releases First Commercial Open Source Wiki | Socialtext Enterprise Wiki
Daft.ie Now Ireland’s Busiest Certified Property Site
I read with interest the snippet in yesterday’s Sunday Times business section that Daft.ie is now Ireland’s #1 website, according to certified traffic audited by ABC Electronic.
Of course, I wanted to see where boards.ie fits into this list, and checking into our Google Analytics summary I saw that we are averaging around 7.5 million page views per month, which would put us somewhere around #8 in their table.
Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy Show (or rather Tuesday guest griper Ian O’Doherty) gave a passing mention to boards.ie two days ago and the usual tensions between those members who are from the capital and those who are not.
Why do we need to hear this old chestnut of “Dublin’s better” again? O’Doherty claims that everyone in Ireland outside Dublin really wants to live there because it’s so great. Sorry, it’s not. I was born in Dublin and lived there when I was a youngling, and even when I go back now I’m glad to go to Tower Records / HMV / Forbidden Planet / Starbucks and then get the hell out after a few hours. For me, it’s like going to the mall… Great for a bit, unbearable after that.
Thanks to Alison Bradley at Trylon MSR for notifying me of this interesting article, following on from the reference in my previous post.
…
SECOND PATENT PENDING. Other social-networking Web sites don’t yet appear to be losing much sleep. Reid Hoffman, founder of business social-networking site LinkIn.com, said in an e-mail, “Some of our folks have reviewed the claims, and think that it’s fairly obvious that none of them apply to us…. So, in short, not worried.” A MySpace spokesperson says the company isn’t currently prepared to comment.
…Meanwhile, Friendster filed for a dozen patents in mid-2003 at the urging of major venture capital backer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. A second patent is expected to be granted soon, says Lindstrom. This one will focus on the technologies involved when a user loads photos onto another user’s page.
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Read more at Business Week Online’s article entitled “Friendster’s Patent Possibilities“.
Following much comment about spamming in the Irish blogosphere from Maman Poulet, Damien and Bernie, we’ve added a new “report this blog entry” feature at Planet Journals. Of course, this will require yet more human intervention but I hope that some review volunteers will help us out.
I gave a presentation to the Galway Heritage Forum on our Wiki Ireland project this morning. Something strange happened to me last night when I was looking for a picture for one of my slides. I did a Google search for “Irish heritage” and glanced through the first page of results for something that looked like it might fit in, and spotted a Celtic cross (thumbnail #12 below).
When I copied and pasted the image into my presentation, I was looking at it and realised that it was taken from the graveyard in my home village. Not only that, but almost directly in the centre was our family grave (where my great-grandparents and grandmother are buried). I’m not sure exactly how many graveyards there are in Ireland, it must certainly be in the thousands, but to get that exact picture with that angle was certainly very, very unlikely. Paranormal event anyone?
Legal Threat from Switch Media. Please do not refer to them again here. Ever. - boards.ie
Now we have been threatened with legal action from Chris Evans at Switch Media and their solicitors Beauchamps. This was pretty annoying, the shoot first (with a solicitor’s letter), tell us to sort the problem afterwards policy really doesn’t work people. I’m talking to the clients in this case, not the solicitors (they just did what they were told to I guess).
To paraphrase (again), this letter asked that a “misleading, false and defamatory thread be removed immediately“. If that wasn’t done by today, there were some threats of instituting legal proceedings. It then mentioned the client’s goodwill in Ireland, and that they would seek all current and future legal costs from us in addition to damages and an account of profits (ours or theirs?!).
Even if such a case were pursued (and I don’t think it would be valid, since a poster’s opinions are their own [see previous Irish Psychics Live post]), it would only damage the overall boards.ie community (on the comments of one poster) and also the claimant’s reputation.
Just ask us to remove dodgy content or defamatory material, and we’ll do it. Send us a solicitor’s letter and we will still do our best to remove problematic posts, but you will also get the extra negative PR associated with any bully tactics.
I’m glad that Switch Media now consider the case closed. I hope others thinking of sending solicitor’s letters will hear my plea.
Traidlinks - Promoting Enterprise and in the Developing World
Heard from bhg that Jacobs Fruitfield are launching a new brand concept, Heart of Africa, with the aim of promoting enterprise in Uganda and other African nations. Sounds like a great idea; the produce will be on sale nationwide in over 100 leading retail outlets soon, with the official launch on July 13th.
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