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Ozrodders.com American-hosted community for Australian hotrodders |
A message from the Aussies...
The Australian Street Rod Federation National Administrator Alan Tudman (and his family) were suing Greg Wapling for $250,000 each ($750,000 total) as administrator of the Hot Rod Internet Benchracing forum for comments written on the forum by nine other HRI members. The discussion in question was an inquiry by Greg for information about the formation of the Australian Street Custom Federation. There were some 141 replies to this post over several days.
Mr. Tudman's original letter, in which he threatened to sue Greg, was filled with errors and misinformation. He identified twenty-eight posts that he considered defamatory, and demanded that Greg break the Privacy Act and provide the names and addresses of the members that they believed had defamed them. Greg refused, of course.
The basis for Mr. Tudman's defamation suit was taken from the precedent set in a similar case in Australia in 2002. It maintained that the administrator is responsible for any and all content that is published on his website.
We don't know if it was the ASRF honorary lawyer or his "personal friend" lawyer who found this example and recommended to Mr. Tudman to threaten to sue. Greg's lawyer assures us that under the Broadcasting Act, Greg, as administrator and content host, may be protected from such actions. However, this has yet to be proven in Australia since the previous case, so who wants to be the first to see? Even though we believe we had the law on our side, Greg would still have to go to court and, like most other people, this is something he just could not afford. Therefore, the decision was made to shut down the original HRI forum. Dave thought about taking on the Administrator role but then considered if someone didn't like what he said, he could be the next to be sued. No Australian could really afford to take this risk, and so the only true Aussie hot rod forum was taken down.
The big losers were the members, many of whom had relied on the forum for information, and were now isolated. The next biggest loser was free speech in Australia. All Mr. Tudman had to do was make one phone call to Greg and any posts deemed inappropriate would have been instantly modified or removed. We will never understand why legal action was the first option. We now have the Hot Rod Internet Forum MK II, owned and administered in the United States, where free speech is protected and enshrined in the Constitution.
Greg and Dave would like to thank all our previous members and guests. Although we no longer have anything to do with the hosting or administration of the forum, we are still members and hope you all embrace the new HRI forum. Please note that nearly all original posts are still available here and this fantastic wealth of Aussie hot rod information is preserved for future hotrodders.
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