[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[FT2]

It would probably be hard to sustain a claim of deceit.  As best I can
tell, long before any wider discussion, all roles were clear or known.  The
email cited by IB clearly itself attempts to ensure roles and principals
are not mistaken.

The test of deceit would be whether persons who are or have considered
changing where they write, testify that *they only made that decision* due
to being misled as to who was affiliated with or representing whom, *and
that* knowing that now, they would wish not to change hosts.

But even that doesn't help IB because the easy answer is, Wikitravel is not
discontinued by their action, so a person wishing to continue editing there
is freely able to do so. The only people who will leave are precisely those
members of the public who - knowing all the facts now known - *still* wish
to do so.  In which case they either were not deceived or any purported
deceit has not changed their course of action.

Individual authors, not IB, have a course of action.  IB the legal entity
was not deceived as to representatives nor was any misrepresentation
directed at IB.   Indeed, I doubt that any purported misrepresentation is
capable of having affected IB in a legal sense.  (Tautologically so: -
those who might feel they were misled will stay anyway now they know "the
truth", those leaving regardless clearly either did not feel misled or else
were unaffected by any claimed misrepresentation as they wish to leave even
knowing "the truth", IB has the ability to communicate to all affected any
alleged misrepresentations so they can enjoy this choice)

FT2



On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 12:40 PM, Thomas Morton <
morton.thomas at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On 12 September 2012 12:34, FT2 <ft2.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The side-suggestion you make is more about tortious deception (I pretend
> to
> > be an employee or official representative of someone, or pretend not to
> > be), but that's not alleged here.  "Who was involved with whom" and
> > relationships between those involved were unambiguous by the sound of it.
> > (It is hard to imagine any of the individuals now complaining "I wouldn't
> > have done/agreed that if I'd known who you really were/really
> represented")
> >
> >
>
> As to your second point; they explicitly make this allegation in the
> filing.
>