Yesterday, I suggested in this story that Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, is badmouthing Alisher Usmanov, the billionaire Russian steel magnate attempting to take over Premier League club Arsenal, because he wants to sell you a book he wrote about his experience in that former Soviet republic. It has become clear today, however, that whatever Murray is attempting to sell, Usmanov and his lawyers do not want anyone to buy it.According to Tom Dunmore at PitchInvasion.net, Craig Murray's web site was taken off line today after sustained pressure on Murray's web hosting provider from Schillings, the London law firm representing Usmanov. What's more, Schillings has also managed to put the kibosh on political site Bloggerheads three days after Tim Ireland wrote this piece on Schillings' cease & desist letters.
Web sites for English politicians Boris Johnson and Bob Piper were also taken down in part because they fell under Ireland's purview. In addition, Pitch Invasion and Arseblog have both received legal pressure from Schillings to remove any links and references to Murray and his accusations of Usmanov's criminal past.
The timing of this latest attack is quite interesting, as it all went down the same day that Chelsea sacked Jose Mourinho, all but guaranteeing that nobody in the mainstream media would be paying any attention to it. Unfortunately for Schillings, their success in taking down these web sites has resulted in this story being publicized all over the web.
Political blog Chicken Yoghurt has compiled a list of blogs that have publicized this story as a result of both Murray's site and Ireland's sites being taken down. Several dozen sites are now screaming censorship at Usmanov and Schillings for their actions, and it's hard to say they don't have a point.
It appears Schillings has fallen victim to something our pals at Techdirt like to call "The Streisand Effect." Back in 2003, Barbra Streisand sued a photographer in an attempt to remove an aerial photo of her California home from the Internet, despite the fact that the photo was part of a publicly funded coastline erosion study and wasn't even labeled as her home. As a result, photos of her house were published all over the web within days.
A similar situation happened last year to Diebold when internal memos discussing their easily hackable electronic voting machines were leaked to the web, and a group of students at Swarthmore College published the memos to the web. Diebold attempted to have the memos removed, claiming the students were committing copyright infringement. The company was successfully sued for issuing unlawful takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and forced to pay $125,000 in damages.
Interestingly enough, a blogger called Sepisticle published a takedown notice from Schillings and then removed it after Schillings claimed it was a "copyrighted letter."
Much most interesting, though, is that for all their claims that Murray is libeling their client, Schillings has not actually sued Murray for libel. They have told anyone who will listen that Murray's book, Murder at Samarkand, is defamatory against Usmanov, but it's been out for more than a year, and they have never taken any legal action against Murray. Instead, they seem more focused on getting any mention of Murray and his allegations against Usmanov removed from the web -- and as the Streisand Effect teaches us, that's pretty much impossible.
If Murray's goal was to make Usmanov look like a thug, then mission accomplished, and it may be why the remaining Arsenal board members are redoubling their efforts to prevent Usmanov from taking over the club. If Murray ever finds his way back to the Internet, this story could get even nastier. Let's just hope nobody finds any polonium-210 in their soup because of this.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. It would be in everybody's interests for Schillings to sue Craig Murray, because then the truth would come out. Hey! Schillings! Please sue any/all of us, because then we can call Craig Murray as an expert witness.
Posted at 8:03AM on Sep 21st 2007 by NoJags Neil
2. "Yesterday, I suggested in this story that Craig Murray...is badmouthing Alisher Usmanov...because he wants to sell you a book he wrote..."
Wow. You didn't actually consider that Murray might actually be speaking from a principled point of view in exposing this guy? Everything comes down to money with you? Perhaps you've been inhabiting a money-driven meaningless industry for a tad too long - time to step into the real world my friend!
Also, take a look at Craig Murray's background if you think he is a money-obsessed careerist - the irony of what you have accused him of, in light of all that he has gone through, is quite stark! This is a man that has nearly died in the process of taking on the British establishment - perhaps it is wise to do some research before putting pen to paper..?
Posted at 8:29AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Dylan Carr-Michael
3. I write about football. Lots of money is involved. It makes me cynical.
Plus, I didn't know who Craig Murray was until this story started breaking.
Posted at 8:31AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Dave
4. He's a fascinating and courageous bloke - if he was driven by money he could have stayed in his cushy job as British Ambassador to Uzbekistan - the only problem with that was that he was pretty disgusted when he found out that the Uzbek govt were using torture against their citizens (including boiling people alive). Craig Murray (perhaps naively at the time) thought that the British government would also be shocked about what one of their allies was doing but no - when he revealed what was going on and pleaded for action to be taken, he got the sack for being a 'trouble-maker' and the Uzbek govt got to carry on with their torture in peace.
I would recommend going to hear him speak if/when he does any future (completely free!) public meetings.
Posted at 9:39AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Dylan Carr-Michael
5. I'm a cynic, too -- but in this case I agree with Dylan Carr-Michael. I didn't come to this through football, though -- after discussing Uzbekistan with someone who's been involved with democracy movements in Central Asia, I sent my friend a link to Murray's site (though my friend is no fan of the Uzbek dictatorship, he had thought the "boiling his enemies" bit an instance of "the Kaiser eats babies" propaganda...). But lo and behold, Murray's site was snuffed. Hopefully "the Streisand Effect" will serve a higher purpose in this case, with readers taking an interest in the sorts of governments "the coalition of the [un]willing [and coerced]" is willing to work with in the so-called "war on terror"...
Posted at 12:51AM on Sep 24th 2007 by Peteris Cedrins