This is going to be long and complicated and with all kinds of digressions. So if that kind of thing doesn't appeal to you, better move along.
But for those of you who want to stick around, this is a kind of Thank You note to Nikki Hemming and Sharman Networks for initiating an experience through which I've met Wenda Atkin and Ruth Hatton in Ontario, Dan Burnett in BC, Mireille and Claude in Quebec, Gerald in Germany, JP in France, and a lot of other people in a lot of other countries.
And this 'Thank You' isn't meant to be sarcastic. I mean it.
There aren't a whole lot of separate factions online. We're all in it together, pros and cons, pluses and minuses. Because we're all of us synergistically connected in almost magical ways through this huge, mysterious network of people and machines we call the Net.
Hemming and Sharman have also given my daughter, Emma, my wife, Liz, and myself a chance to do something few families are able to do – examine our commitments both to each other and to things we believe in. Deeply.
Hemming and Sharman decided to sue me for libel, alleging I'd defamed them in an article outlining Australian court proceedings into Hemming's assets. They're also demanding the identity of a p2pnet reader who posted an anonymous comment which I included in the same story. But as I say in the Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign, "as far as I'm concerned, an anonymous post is the same as a confidential source. I don't have to like a post, or even agree with it. But I believe that as an honest and responsible human being, I do have to safeguard the poster, if indeed I know who he or she is which in this case, I don't.
"If Sharman wins it'll make life a potential hell for bloggers in Canada, at the least. And you can bet the case will be used as a reference for similar actions around the world."
"I mean 'cmon," I can hear someone saying. "That's really stretching it." But No. It's not.
To digress, we barely break even on p2pnet and since S&H (as I'll call them from now on) had hired Roger McConchie, who seems pretty aggressive, I had to find someone of high caliber to work with me. And the distinction 'with' as opposed to 'for' is important. It was vital that whomever ended up handling the legal end should be committed in a personal way to the concept of freedom of speech.
In Canada, just about anyone can sue anyone else for libel. But traditionally, it isn't for the plaintiff to prove falsehood or even damage. It's the other way around. Guilty until proven innocent, in other words.
I had Sharman on my trail and because I'm not exactly flush, this meant launching an online appeal to collect funds with which to defend myself against the charges shot-gunned at me by S&H.
My friend Sandro in Quebec created the Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign, registered the urls, did the graphics and designed the site, something he'd also done for Patti Santangelo, the New York mother of five who is, ironically, being sued by someone on the other side of the fence, someone who's been after Kazaa for years.
Kazaa? "We find that Kazaa is badware because it misleadingly advertises itself as spywarefree, does not completely remove all components during the uninstall process, interferes with computer use, and makes undisclosed modifications to other software," says StopBadware,org, an organization started by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute, with the support of several prominent tech companies, including Google, Lenovo, and Sun Microsystems. Consumer Reports WebWatch is serving as an unpaid special advisor.
The someone who's after Patti is actually a something, the RIAA, to be exact. That's short for the Recording Industry Association of America, a hard-core enforcement outfit more or less owned by the Big Four Organized Music cartel.
The Big Four, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, claim they're being devastated (their word) by file sharers, and they say Patti is one such; and that she, and millions of other file sharers, have been depriving them of their profits by using Kazaa and other applications to distribute music online.
There are much better p2p programs, but Kazaa was first in the door after Big Music killed Napster, the app that started it all. The current Napster is but a wan and pale shadow of the original.
The Big Four say people such as Patti are thieves who commit the dastardly crime of sharing music with each other online, even though file sharing isn't a crime and nothing was, or has been, stolen by her or any of the other 19,000 or so men, women and children currently being pilloried by the labels in the US as part of a bizarre marketing scheme.
The idea apparently is: you try to sue your customers into buying product they won't buy any other way. And not at all coincidentally, most of the 19,000 were using Kazaa, and most, if not all, of them - especially the children - say they weren't aware they were doing anything wrong.
Sandro designed and registered Fight Goliath to which p2pnet readers are contributing to help Patti defend herself against the allegations.
Sharman, meanwhile, is what The Register's Ashlee Vance calls, "the big daddy behind the infamous Kazaa," with the same pronounciation as kazoo. It's hated equally by consumers and the music industry and I've been writing about it ever since p2pnet started. The story which S&H claim upset them was one such, and Wenda was one of the first people to contribute to the Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign.
I've been emailing Thank-Yous and Wenda emailed back, "Regarding that law suit, when people go out of their way to actively and publicly make things right in this world, they open themselves to criticism. They go beyond their comfort zone and become a potential public target. It appears that Canadians are now getting international attention for the way we are taking back control from the corporatations with the formation of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC). No doubt it's thanks to you, and the other writers - the Geists, the McOrmonds - and to those who read the facts and realize we are strong in numbers.
"Anyway, good luck and thank you for your p2pnet.net."
Among other things, Wenda runs two music sites, one, CanadaJams.ca, of a generic nature, and the other, PeterboroughJams, based in Peterborough, Ontario.
Peterborough?
I've been a reporter for most of my life but when my wife got pregnant, we decided we wanted to home-school our child. This meant coming up with a new way of earning a living so I could be around. Liz and I have always liked collecting old things so we started selling antiques in Lakefield, a village close to Peterborough.
I'm also a musician and one of my best mates in that part of the world is Dennis O'Toole, a very well known balladeer and folk singer. And Yes, Wenda doesn't only know Dennis, she was at his recent birthday party when she heard him playing steel guitar. And when we dug a little deeper, we discovered Wenda is an antique fiend who'd visited our store in Lakefield.
Small world.
But I still needed counsel, so I surfed around and discovered Dan Burnett, a media lawyer who, in a CTV article, was quoted as saying he wanted to see the constitutionally enshrined right of free expression on the same legal footing as an accused person's right to a fair trial.
That looked good to me. But how was I, broke as I am, to get Burnett to talk to me, let alone possibly work with me on this case?
Like McConchie, he practices in British Columbia, Canada, and like McConchie, he's based in Vancouver. I, in turn, am on Vancouver Island, an hour-and-a-half by ferry from the mainland. And a simple phone call was all it took. We had a brief chat, he said he was indeed someone who believed in freedom of speech both on- and offline, and I arranged to meet him in his office at the top of a tall skyscraper in downtown Vancouver on the afternoon of Monday, May 29.
To digress again, as I said earlier, we home-school Emma, and thank God we do. Anyway, she's nearly 10, and on that day, Liz and she were slated for a meeting with other parents who prefer to educate their kids themselves.
I don't drive and normally, Liz, Emma and I would have gone to the mainland together. But they wanted to go to the meeting, which meant I'd catch the bus to the ferry. No worries. The meeting with Burnett was going to be very important and a bus-ride would give me a chance to think.
So I boarded a Greyhound coach in Duncan, bound for Nanaimo, where I'd get a ferry to Horseshoe Bay, and from there, still on the bus, to Vancouver. I sat next to a charming lady named Ruth Hatton who was on Vancouver Island visiting relatives. She told me she was on her way to Qualicum, a little north of Nanaimo, and was soon heading back to Ontario.
Interestingly, she turned out to be the webmaster for CarlysArt, a site she runs for Carly, her artistically gifted grand-daughter, aged 13. Ruth explained Carly was autistic and her paintings and drawings were the way she was best able to express herself. That's Carly on the right at the top of the page, and the two dogs are an example of her work.
Ruth and I ended up trading stories and she explained she used to run a flea-market in Gannanoque, near Kingston, Ontario. And given that Liz and I used to get a lot of our stock from local flea-markets, and that we'd often bought items in and around Gannanoque, we figured it was a sure bet we'd been in her store.
Small world.
She asked me why I was going to Vancouver and when I explained, wondering if she'd ever heard of Kazaa, she said she had. And what she'd heard wasn't positive.
We parted company at the Nanaimo bus terminal when a new driver took over. He announced we'd soon be boarding the ferry and, "I know that accent," I said to myself. He was from Ilford, London. I was born in Hillingdon, North London. And I'd moved from my first newspaper, the Folkestone Herald, to, Yup, the Ilford Pictorial.
But we're not quite done.
I spent an intense two hours with Dan and he agreed to work with me. And it turned out we also have a home-schooling connection. His sister home-schools her kids and lives fairly near to us. Liz and I don't know her, but one of the home-schooling families we spend a lot of time with, does.
Connections within connections. Synergies within synergies. Small worlds within each other. And coincidences.
One way or another, we're all part of this embryonic entity we call the Net and ultimately, there's no good or bad. Just change.
I still hope we'll be able to resolve this amicably, but if not, not. Because as I've said a number of times, for me, this isn't a contest between p2pnet and Sharman Networks. In fact, it isn't about libel, or me or S&H at all.
It's about freedom of speech in Canada, and the lawsuit is threatening it. As Russell McOrmond, a frequent p2pnet contributor and a staunch supporter of openness on the Net, said in a comment post:
"The articles [the subject of the lawsuit] were not flattering, but the subjects of the messages are 'famous' persons within the p2p community and [the articles] didn't seem any more defamatory than the average episode of CBC's 'This Hour Has 22 Minutes' is towards Canadian politicians. Both may be on the edge, and both may be uncomfortable if you are the subject of what is being said, but that is a far cry from saying that a court should silence this speech.
"This case is not about Jon's 'version of free speech', but trying to ensure that Jon as a private blogger is offered at least the same level of free speech protection as a large broadcaster."
And in another comment, "... our belief in free speech is not tested by protecting speech we agree with, but the willingness to protect speech that we find appalling. I personally wouldn't use Jon's style in my own communications (trying to attract a mildly different audience), but I haven't found anything I've personally read to cross any lines (moral or legal)."
So all of the above is to say I've been put into a situation which I dreaded, at first, but for which I'm now grateful.
Some elements are going to continue cause me and my family a great deal of grief and trouble. But free speech is the most fundamental of all human rights and without wishing to be trite, Liz, Emma and I decided we're privileged to be able to stand up for it in Canada and, ultimately, in other parts of the world.
How many people can claim that?
So once again, Sharman and Nikki, thanks. Really.
Meanwhile, the court case is going to be expensive. Sharman has deep pockets, but p2pnet's entire income is from the adverts you see on the site. They also pay our mortgage and other living expenses.
So we're running an appeal and any and all help will be very greatly appreciated.
Ruth explained Carly was autistic and her paintings and drawings were the way she was best able to express herself. That's Carly on the right at the top of the page, and the two dogs are an example of her work.
