Montreal Tech Watch

Zeke is a blogger who also runs an ‘expertimental’ art gallery in Montreal. I find his blogging style and approach to art innovative – and welcomed in Montreal. Now, there is a new episode that everyone interested in blogging and new media should be aware of.

Zeke received yesterday a cease and desist letter about a post he wrote 6 months ago. He reported back then about Pierre-Antoine Tremblay and Frank Martorana. Quote:

According to this article, a guy named Frank Martorana was in business with Pierre-Antoine Tremblay who tried to sell some fake paintings to Loto-Quebec. Because of him, a bunch of different police forces here in Canada started to investigate the Mafia for something like five years, and resulted in them arresting a gazillion and a half people on Thursday.

Pierre Antoine Tremblay is asking Zeke to dissociate him from Frank Martorana. I find this completely ridiculous. Chris is reporting about public facts. If I had to rewrite Zeke’s post, it would have been:

According to this article, because of a guy named Frank Martorana, a bunch of different police forces here in Canada started to investigate the Mafia for something like five years, and resulted in them arresting a gazillion and a half people on Thursday. Frank Martorana was in business with Pierre-Antoine Tremblay, who previously tried to sell some fake paintings to Loto-Quebec

But this is really neatpicking about usage of pronouns and writing. You don’t sue bloggers because they voice their opinions or because of their “bad” writing. I mean everyone can be pointing out insignificant details like this. See for instance this, quoted from the C&D letter:

..Retirer tout évocation et ou allusion sur votre site Internet a l’effet que Monsieur Pierre Antoine Tremblay aurait tenté de vendre des fausses peintures a Loto Québec. Pour satisfaire votre soif de curiosité, vous devriez pousser quelque peu vos recherches en vous dirigeant au Palais de justice de Montréal. Un reglement hors cours est intervenu entre Loto-Québec et Monsieur Pierre Antoine Trembaly. Ce règlement est confidentiel, mais si cela vous intéresse…

The lawyer is illogic because:

1. Pierre Antoine Tremblay was publicly under investigation for selling fakes to SAQ and Loto Quebec. Radio-Canada Le Devoir
2. The lawyer says to him to search the documents and archives at Montréal Palais de justice. But then he says the agreement was confidential. So you can’t access it. If the lawyer is really seeking for true representation of reality, he should disclose this confidential agreement.

I really hope this starts a discussion in the montreal blogging community. If you are a blogger, please post about this and what you think about the issue. about your rights and obligations as a blogger. on how bloggers can protect themselves from attacks like this.

For me, I find the episode completely ridiculous. This raises issues on Freedom of Speech and what rights&obligations new media have. If you are a blogger, you should read the C&D letter twice. I also invite you to read EFF’s page about bloggers and about online defamation.

Pierre Antoine Tremblay has apparently enough money to pay lawyers but not to open a website. I always say that in our era, if you don’t write/blog about what you are doing, someone else will do it for you. Finally, I am sure he is suing Zeke because he can’t sue big players like Radio-Canada or Le Devoir. ridiculous.