Northern Rock attempts internet censorship
2008-Jan-21, Monday 20:28This one made me laugh. Dramatis Personae:
Odds of me looking at the document in question before today? Minimal. But I've read it now. Nice try guys.
- Northern Rock: British bank in a little bit of financial difficulty.
- Wikileaks:
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.
Set up intentionally to allow documents to be hosted without censorship. - Schillings: Our old friends the
Reputation managers with a reputation problem?
who used libel law as such a blunt instrument against Tim et al.
And get this, this is the genius one...
That's right, not content to try to censor a blogger for republishing stuff already in his book, they've now managed to attempt to censor a website specifically set up to stop censorship, by claiming copyright on the documents. Now, of course, they may have a legal case, but, um, guys? Don't you think you could learn from your mistakes?Collapsed UK Bank Attempts to Censor Wikileaks
In their legal demand to Wikileaks, Northern Rock's well-known media lawyers, Schillings, invoke the DMCA & WIPO, claim it'll be 10 years in prison for Wikileaks operators for not following the UK injunction, but then, incredibly, refuse to hand over a copy of the order unless Wikileaks' London lawyers promise not to give it to Wikileaks.
Odds of me looking at the document in question before today? Minimal. But I've read it now. Nice try guys.
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Date: 2008-Jan-21, Monday 21:03 (UTC)My favorite bit was wikileaks using the fact that they had been served an injunction as proof of the documents veracity.
Strange thing is I thought a lot of that document's contents were actually in the public domain - I am sure much of it appeared in the Independent a couple of weeks ago.
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Date: 2008-Jan-22, Tuesday 13:21 (UTC)OTOH, Major sued Staggers for saying he wasn't and Scallywag for saying he was at the same time so it's not really proof at all.
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Date: 2008-Jan-22, Tuesday 11:22 (UTC)Hmm, a bank with an incompetent senior business administration have hired an incompetent 'reputation management' firm - actually, phrased like that, it sort of fits, I suppose.
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Date: 2008-Jan-22, Tuesday 13:23 (UTC)But they're just not really any good at it when it comes to online stuff. Which is fun.