Alas, Greg, lawsuits, not to mention death threats, are part
of
the reference publishing game. Some members on this list
may
have experience with the attempts (long in the past, I am
told)
by the Church of Scientology to browbeat publishers
(including
Britannica) about certain articles, with the threat of
litigation
always looming. Or there was the group threatening
Merriam-Webster with a boycott for the inclusion of the word
"niggardly" in the dictionary, which was thought
to be a racial
epithet. That is nothing compared to the trademark group
that
threatened to tear Merriam down for printing those words in
common use that some believed were protected marks. We
should
not leave out Britannica's map of Kashmir. Pakistan or
India?
Answer wrong and your books will be embargoed by the customs
department. Or have we all forgotten the firestorm
surrounding
MIT Press a few years ago upon the publication of a book
dealing
with rape?
It's an unwelcome fact of life that publishing good books
and
publishing them well is occasionally an act of heroism (not
unlike the situation of those librarians who, for example,
protect Harry Potter from the enemies of
"witchcraft").
Joe Esposito
On 2/23/07, Greg Tananbaum <gtananbaum gmail.com> wrote:
> A fundamental difference between Wikipedia and, say,
the
> Encyclopedia Britannica is the level of gatekeeping
that exists.
> I am not aware (though, of course, that does not mean
there is
> not precedent) of a subject suing a "real"
encyclopedia for an
> entry that is unflattering at best and libelous at
worst (see
> below).
>
> Of course, would Fuzzy Zoeller have an entry in
Britannica?
>
> Best, Greg
>
> ________________________
> Greg Tananbaum
> gtananbaumgmail.com
> (510) 295-7504
>
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/news/sho
wArticle.jhtml?articleID=197008201
>
> Pro golfer Fuzzy Zoeller filed an anonymous lawsuit
against a
> Miami law firm for allegedly defamatory edits to his
> Wikipedia<http://www.techweb.com/
encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=Wikipedia&x=&y=&g
t;page,
> hoping to prevent further injury to his reputation and
to protect
> his family's privacy.
>
> But Zoeller was quickly unmasked as the "John
Doe" plaintiff by
> online news site The Smoking
> Gun<http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years
/2007/0222071fuzzy1.html>,
> which used a search
> engine<http://informationweek.com/news/showA
rticle.jhtml?articleID=197006843>to
> find the source of the allegedly defamatory material
cited in
> Zoeller's legal filing.
>
> The lawsuit claims edits to Zoeller's Wikipedia profile
last
> December came from a computer
> <http://www.techweb.com/encyc
lopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=computer&x=&y=>
> with an IP
> <http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedi
a/defineterm.jhtml?term=IP&x=&y=>
> address registered by Miami-based law firm Josef Silny
&
> Associates.
>
> The altered profile <http:/
/www.answers.com/topic/fuzzy-zoeller>,
> which Zoeller claims is false and libelous, remains
online at
> Answers.com. The Zoeller entry at Wikipedia appears to
have been
> purged of the objectionable passages.
|
