Fwd: [ PFIR ] Harvard registers harvard.porn

[Mark Leiser]

I respectfully disagree with Andres. First of all, I an not convinced a
string counts as publication, a requirement under the act. Leaving that
aside for the moment...

Although andresguadamas.sucks refers to the claimant - Why would "sucks" be
defamatory? Surely this fall under the available "fair comment" or "honest
opinion" defence?

As far as I know, no one has tried to make this claim under the present
system, despite powerful DNS cases like Ryanairsucks etc. I think the court
may struggle to find loss/harm from such innocuous terminology.

The point could be made that there is a regulatory authority (ICANN or
NOMINET) with policies on registerability.

Finally, even if there is "publication" within the meaning of the Act, I'm
not immediately aware of an authority. To my knowledge no one has sued in
defamation for an address string.

Regards

Mark

Mark Leiser, BS, LLB (Hon) | PhD Candidate | University of Strathclyde |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Science | The Law School l Centre for
Internet Law and Policy | PGR Room, 141 St. James Road | Lord Hope Building
| Glasgow G4 OLT | Tel. +44 7719739090



Email: markleiser at gmail.com

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On 28 Mar 2015 18:48, "Andres Guadamuz" <A.Guadamuz at sussex.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Defamation law in England tends to favour claimants, it was even a joke
> in South Park (Tom Cruise shouting "I'm gonna sue you in England!").
>
> Two elements need to be met for a claim in defamation, it must refer to
> the claimant, and it must lower the claimant "in the estimation of
> right-thinking members of society generally". My opinion being familiar
> with the existing case law is that the registration of a .sucks domain
> could meet these and other defamation requirements.
>
> For example, the threshold of what constitutes a defamatory statement is
> very low, as evidence by the Lord McAlpine case where this tweet was
> considered defamatory:
> 'Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*"
> http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2013/981.html
>
> In my opinion, a defamation case has a high possibility of success in
> England. This is not to say that it will happen, just that at least in the
> UK it is a distinct possibility. It might be difficult to prove damages
> though, but it might be possible to obtain injunctive relief.
>
> Andres
>
>
> On 28/03/2015 16:55, Nicolas Adam wrote:
>
> I guess there is a difference between successfully bringing up an action
> and standing a snowball's chance in hell of winning it on the strength of
> that sole registration fact, but I'm kind of hoping that registering is not
> the only threshold ....
>
>
> On 2015-03-27 7:26 AM, Andres Guadamuz wrote:
>
> I had a class today exactly about this. I was joking to the students if I
> should consider buying andresguadamuz.sucks and andresguadamuz.porn, and we
> had an extensive discussion about whether the above would be defamatory if
> someone else did it. Most of the class thought that you could successfully
> bring up an action in England for defamation just for registering the
> domain.
>
> I tend to agree.
>
>
>
> --
> Dr Andres Guadamuz
> Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law
> Room G17
> Freeman Centre
> University of Sussex
> Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9QE
>
> Tel. 01273 678629
> http://ssrn.com/author=387238 http://www.technollama.co.uk
>
>
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