Chinese site threatens to sue UK blogger in NSW

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 27 August 2009 06:03

Your IT - Home IT

A Chinese firm that runs a massive multiplayer online game has threatened to sue a British blogger over alleged defamatory comments. The threat has been made on behalf of the firm by lawyers based in New South Wales.
In some respects, this is reminiscent of the well-known Gutnick v Dow Jones case of the early 2000s when Melbourne-based mining magnate Joseph Gutnick sued Dow Jones in Victoria over material that was later judged to be defamatory.

The case was a landmark one in that it ended in a ruling that someone could be defamed in a location other than that from which defamatory material had been published. Dow Jones is based in the US.

The case being threatened by the Chinese company, Evony, differs in that it has no physical presence in Australia.

The lawyers representing Evony, Warren McKeon Dickson, have sent a letter to Bruce Everiss, a former marketer for the games industry and now a consultant, who writes a popular blog about gaming, threatening him with legal action.

In the letter, dated August 25 and sent to Everiss by email, they list details contained in articles which Everiss wrote about Evony, concluding that his allegations are defamatory.

The letter mentions that the alleged defamatory material has been published in New South Wales and other Australian jurisdictions and refers to the Gutnick v Dow Jones case in this context.

Everiss has been asked to provide an undertaking in a week that the articles will be removed from his blog, offer to pay compensation for the loss that the company has allegedly suffered, and also to offer a formal apology in a prominent position on his blog; the lawyers have drafted and included the apology they want.

The lawyers have given Everiss a deadline of August 28 to confirm that he is the author of the articles, or else identify the author. They are also demanding the names of all those involved in publication of these articles.

The lawyers demand that he confirm by August 28 that he wrote blog entries on The Chaos Engine, a games industry forum, under a certain name, and provide the names of all involved in the publication of these entries, which the lawyers claim defame their client.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, which carried an article critical of Evony recently, has also received a legal complaint from the company.