Legal action against alasbarricadas.org

David in Atlanta ""crude reductionist version of marxism""
Posts: 1916 Joined: 21-04-06
Submitted by David in Atlanta on 10 May, 2007 - 21:45.

alasbarricadas.org is the Spanish equivalent of libcom.
this is from http://barcelona.indymedia.org/feature/display/303056/index.php

Quote:
The companions from alasbarricadas.org libertarian portal have been sued by SGAE (Editors and Authors General Society) for alleged comments against the image and reputation of the singer known as "Ramoncín". By this an information campaign about the SGAE's attack against alasbarricadas portal is being made.

Again we're front precedents that let us glimpse what could be happening to media antagonistic portals. We'll must be alert.

I think they babelfished that but it's understandable.

jef costello "Beautiful, just like Nuremburg"
Posts: 9932 Joined: 09-02-06 Location: razorblade of apathy, shave me with your irony
10 May, 2007 - 22:04

I think some more info could be handy, certainly before we can offer any solidarity. Any libcom Spanish speakers about?

rkn
Posts: 7651 Joined: 17-07-06 Location: London
10 May, 2007 - 23:38

Yeah like what did they say about this guy? And what is Editors and Authors General Society?

David in Atlanta ""crude reductionist version of marxism""
Posts: 1916 Joined: 21-04-06
11 May, 2007 - 00:38

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGAE
They're a copyright protection outfit.
They sound like real assholes.

I haven't figured out what our naughty comrades said about this Ramoncín character, who's a former punk rocker turned tv presenter and film actor who's been busy campaigning against music piracy. ffs, he's on the SGAE board of Directors!

revol68 ""Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do""
Posts: 17788 Joined: 23-02-04 Location: Belfast
11 May, 2007 - 01:28

fuck me, could you imagine if some one decided to go through libcom looking for comments about celebs!! We'd all be FUBUR!

David in Atlanta ""crude reductionist version of marxism""
Posts: 1916 Joined: 21-04-06
11 May, 2007 - 02:25

revol, wanna start a say rude things about ramoncine campaign?
black bloc

gatorojinegro
Posts: 367 Joined: 21-01-07 Location: San Francisco, USA
11 May, 2007 - 02:34

The singer's full name is: Jose Ramón Julio Márquez Martínez. he has sued alasbarricadas.org for violating his "right to honor", that is, presumably, for defamation of character. alasbarricadas.org has a discussion of this on their notices page:

http://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/

They say a campaign is being organized around this.

They point out that people in Spain are told everyday that now of course everyone has the right to express their views in public, but...They also point out that ordinary people are denied their right to dignity every day by poverty wages and so on, and that major companies are the culprit and of course SAGE is a business entity.

OliverTwister "Tied directly to Bekken and the Philly camp"
Posts: 2215 Joined: 10-10-05 Location: San Francisco, USA
11 May, 2007 - 05:48

el comite de 9 tienen que juntir a la IWW (o Solfed) por estar exactamente como alasbarricadas.org

Steven. ""Best hair at Unison conference""
Posts: 1852 Joined: 27-06-06 Location: London
11 May, 2007 - 09:01

Damn, I was waiting for something like this to happen. It'll probably happen to us too, especially if we get bigger, so it'll be interesting to see what happens anyway, I hope they don't get fucked.

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8524 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
11 May, 2007 - 09:26

not sure about spanish law but in english law there's the defence of 'fair comment' (that which could be said by a 'reasonable man' even if there's malice) which could in theory cover all sorts of things that could be said about a former punk rocker becoming the director of an intellectual property group ... having the resources to argue it in court is another matter, though i think the mclibel ECHR ruling said there should be legal aid, which probably applies to spain too.

libcom wise, the relevant precedent seems to be Keith-Smith v Williams (2006), which established that chat rooms (and so presumably forums) could be a medium for libel, but also interestingly held that it was the person who said the libellous stuff that was responsible and not the 'publisher' (who happened to be a massive company, yahoo). i'd imagine they'd try and hold the website liable for any remarks made on a forum though, which is more public and permanent than a chat room.

luckily we can avoid too many problems here by separating our real identities from libcom (they need names and addresses to serve proceedings) and by being skint so there's nothing to gain from suing us.