Our Response To Yet Another Bogus Legal Threat From Australia: Go Learn Some Law

from the not-how-it-works dept

So… you may recall that, back in December, we received and responded to a ridiculous and bogus legal threat sent by one Milorad “Michael” Trkulja from Australia. Mr. Trkulja had sent the almost incomprehensible letter to us and to Google, making a bunch of claims, many of which made absolutely no sense at all. The crux of the issue, however, was that, back in November of 2012, we had an article about a legal victory by Mr. Trkulja against Google. The issue was that when you searched on things like “sydney underworld criminal mafia” in Google’s Image search, sometimes a picture of Trkulja would show up. His argument was that this was Google defaming him, because its algorithms included him in the results of such a search and he was not, in fact, a part of the “underworld criminal mafia.”

Either way, back in 2012 we wrote about that case, and Trkulja was upset that a comment on that story jokingly referred to him as a “gangster.” Because of that, Trkulja demanded that we pay him lots of money, that we delete the story and the comments and that Google delist all of Techdirt entirely. Immediately, we pointed out in our response: the comment is not defamatory, the statute of limitations had long since passed if it was defamatory, as an American company we’re protected by Section 230 of the CDA, and even if he took us to court in Australia, we’re still protected by the SPEECH Act. Finally, we suggested that perhaps he chill out and not care so much about what an anonymous person said in the comments of an internet blog over three years ago — especially when many people consider it a compliment to be called “a gangster.”

Either way, it seemed fairly clear that there was no actual “harm” to Mr. Trkulja, given that he didn’t even seem to care about it for over three years.

We had hoped that this would be the end of it, but apparently it is not. A few weeks back, we received the following, absolutely bogus legal threat from an Australian lawyer by the name of Stuart Gibson, who appears to work for an actual law firm called Mills Oakley. The original threat from Mr. Trkulja could, perhaps, be forgiven, seeing as he almost certainly wrote it himself (again, it was incomprehensible in parts, and full of grammatical and typographical errors). Our response was an attempt to educate Mr. Trkulja against making bogus threats.

However, now that he’s apparently wasting money on a real lawyer like Gibson, we will address the rest of our response to Gibson: Your letter is ridiculous, censorious and not even remotely applicable. Going to court over this will make you and your client look extremely foolish. But let’s dig in, because Mr. Gibson seems to think that blustery bullshit will scare us off. He’s woefully misinformed on this.

First off, if you send a legal threat and say “NOT FOR PUBLICATION” at the top, it’s tough to take you seriously, because such a statement is meaningless. We have no contractual agreement not to publish such information, and if you send us a bogus legal threat, we are damn well going to publish it:

And now on to the crux of Gibson’s argument: we said mean things about his client and somebody’s feelings may have been hurt. If you can’t read that, it says:

The matter that you have published conveys false and defamatory meanings including (but not limited to) the following:

1. Our client is a gangster;
2. That our client by virtue of his legal claims is incompetent and unfit to be a litigant;
3. That our client by virtue of his legal claims is a ridiculous litigant;
4. That our client is a criminal and a participant in organised crime;
5. That our client is unfit to be a litigant

None of these meanings is defensible. Our client is not a criminal and has never been a gangster nor associated with such persons. Accordingly there is no factual basis for the imputations published.

Let’s go through these one by one. First off, we never said that Mr. Trkulja is a gangster. In fact, in both of our previous stories about him, we noted that his concern was over being called a gangster when he was not one. To claim otherwise is Mr. Gibson lying in his threat to us. As a suggestion, lying in your legal threat letter is not a very good idea.

Second, at no point did we state that Mr. Trkulja was incompetent or unfit to be a litigant. We merely published his own words — admittedly including his misspellings, grammatical errors and general confusion — and our responses to them. If Mr. Gibson thinks this implies that his client is unfit to be a litigant, perhaps he should check his own biases.

Third, again, Mr. Gibson seems to be assuming the claim. We did say that the threat against us was ridiculous — an opinion we stand by. But we did not say he was a “ridiculous litigant.” Also, “ridiculous” is a statement of opinion and even in nutty Australia, “honest opinion” is not defamation. And it is our “honest opinion” that the threat is ridiculous.

Fourth, this is a repeat of the first claim. It was false the first time, and it’s still false. Repeating a false claim may allow Mr. Gibson to add to his billable hours, but doesn’t seem like particularly good lawyering.

Fifth, this is a repeat of the second claim. See point four above. And point two above.

So let’s be clear: we did not say that Mr. Trkulja was a gangster. We said, in our honest opinion, that he won a lawsuit the results of which we disagree with, and that his legal threat to us was ridiculous. This is all perfectly reasonable and protected free speech. Second, we posted Mr. Trkulja’s own words which, again in our honest opinions, do show the “ridiculousness” of his threat to us in that it was filled with grammar and spelling errors and was, at points, (again, in our honest opinion) incomprehensible gibberish.

Mr. Gibson, then suggests that arrogance is somehow defamatory:

If you can’t see that, it says:

Moreover your commentary that still resides on your website is an arrogant, false and poorly researched piece for the following reasons:

• The reference to “gangster” is not “totally innocuous”. The reference is grossly defamatory and indefensible. One could not conceive a more defamatory reference than that. It may be a throwaway line in the United States but it is certainly not in this jurisdiction.
• Judgments against US companies especially those resident in California are enforceable particularly monetary judgments.
• You are not protected by the Speech Act.
• This firm has enforced numerous judgments against corporations in your jurisdiction.
• Your reference to “free speech” is absolute nonsense. Speech may be free but it is also actionable.
• You did publish the comment. Under Australian defamation law, you have a duty as a moderator to moderate third party comments. If you do not and refuse to take action when given notice, you are liable.

First off, I may not be an expert on Australian defamation law, but I can tell you I find it difficult to believe that “arrogance” or “poorly researched” information is defamatory there. It certainly is not defamatory in the US, and, furthermore, Mr. Gibson, you are wrong that it was poorly researched. It was well researched and backed up with a great amount of detail — details I will note your own threat letter to us appears to be lacking. And I’m sorry if we come off as arrogant to you, but we’re allowed to speak our minds.

Next, Mr. Gibson, you “could not conceive a more defamatory reference” than calling someone a gangster? Really, now? Because I’m at least moderately familiar with some Australian insults and many of them seem way, way worse than “gangster” — which, again I will remind, you we never called your client (and, in fact, correctly noted that he was upset at someone calling him a gangster). And, yes, it is innocuous. No one cares that someone anonymously in a blog comment jokingly called your client a gangster. It was harmless as is fairly clearly evidenced by the fact that your client didn’t even notice it for over three years.

Next, I’ll note that for all your talk of enforcing Australian monetary judgments in California, you don’t name a single one. And, you’re wrong, because the SPEECH Act absolutely does apply, and you’d be exceptionally foolish to test this, though of course that is your decision to make. The text of the SPEECH Act is pretty explicit, first about when defamation rulings are enforceable in the US and (clue time!) it doesn’t count if the statements wouldn’t be defamatory in the US:

a domestic court shall not recognize or enforce a foreign judgment for defamation unless the domestic court determines that the exercise of personal jurisdiction by the foreign court comported with the due process requirements that are imposed on domestic courts by the Constitution of the United States.

Second, the law is also explicit that a service provider, such as us (in reference to comments published by readers on our site), if protected by CDA 230 in the US, would be similarly protected from foreign judgment:

a domestic court shall not recognize or enforce a foreign judgment for defamation against the provider of an interactive computer service, as defined in section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230) unless the domestic court determines that the judgment would be consistent with section 230 if the information that is the subject of such judgment had been provided in the United States.

I recognize that you’re an Australian lawyer, not a US one, but I would suggest doing at least a tiny bit of research into the caselaw on Section 230 in the US. You will quickly learn that we do qualify as a service provider and that, no, we are not liable for statements in the comments. And, hell, even if we were, and even if the comments were defamatory under US law (which they’re not), the statute of limitations on those original comments is long past anyway.

And, yes, in case you still have not read the SPEECH Act, the legal burden will be on you here:

The party seeking recognition or enforcement of the foreign judgment shall bear the burden of establishing that the judgment is consistent with section 230.

Good luck with that.

In case you still decide to ignore the actual text of the law, you can also go digging through the legislative record on the SPEECH Act, in which it was made explicit that the law was designed to protect against such forms of “libel tourism.”

The purpose of this provision is to ensure that libel tourists do not attempt to chill speech by suing a third-party interactive computer service, rather than the actual author of the offending statement.

You can claim the law doesn’t apply, but you are wrong. The text is clear. You can claim that you have won judgments or monetary awards in the past. And perhaps you have, but if you try to move against us, you will be facing the SPEECH Act and you will lose.

So, given all of the above, we will not be undertaking any of your demands. We will not apologize as we have nothing to apologize for. We will not retract anything, as we did not make any false or defamatory publications. We will not remove anything from our website. We will not pay your client anything, whether “reasonable costs” nor “a sum of money in lieu of damages.”

Instead, we will tell you, as we did originally, to go pound sand and to maybe think twice before making bogus legal threats that you cannot back up.

Filed Under: australia, cda 230, comments, defamation, free speech, milorad trkulja, opinion, section 230, speech act, stuart gibson
Companies: mills oakley