Bitcoin Forum

Back in March, Newsweek published what would have been one of the year's biggest technology scoops. An article by Leah McGrath Goodman claimed to have unmasked Satoshi Nakamoto, the reclusive — and likely pseudonymous — genius who invented Bitcoin. Goodman pointed to an elderly Japanese-American engineer named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto who was living in Southern California.

Dorian vehemently denied any connection to Bitcoin, and Goodman's story — based overwhelmingly on circumstantial evidence, quickly crumbled. Yet Newsweek refused to admit that the story, which appeared on the cover of its first print edition under new ownership — was wrong.

The Bitcoin community saw the Newsweek article — which revealed intimate details of his personal life and quoted family members making unflattering comments about him — as a serious invasion of an elderly man's privacy. They quickly raised more than $20,000 to help him cover personal expenses. And now, Dorian's law firm has has created a website to raise more funds to file a lawsuit against Newsweek.

"A lawsuit against Newsweek will be very expensive," the website, created by the law firm of Kirschner and Associates, says. "Dorian does not have the resources to pay the costs of such a suit, let alone attorneys' fees. Monies raised by the Fund will be used to further Dorian's legal claims against Newsweek; anything remaining will be given directly to Dorian for his expenses."

Why would the Bitcoin community donate to support Dorian's lawsuit? Many in the Bitcoin community see the Newsweek's story as a symptom of the mainstream media's clumsy treatment of Bitcoin more generally. Bitcoin is a complex, technical subject; it has been widely misunderstood and even mocked by mainstream journalists.

Some Bitcoin fans see Goodman's bumbling investigation — she cites Dorian's skill machining parts for model trains as evidence that he had the engineering prowess to create Bitcoin, for examples — as a particularly egregious case of Bitcoin-related journalistic malpractice. They may be willing to contribute in order to hold the magazine accountable in court.

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Source: http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/10/13/6972337/bitcoin-fans-are-raising-money-to-sue-newsweek-for-that-infamous

They deserve to get sued.  He deserves some money.  The lawyers will make out on both ends.

Is this serious?  What exactly did newsweek do wrong?  Everything they have is public information anyway.  Can't possibly be a lawsuit, otherwise criminals could always sue the news, am I right?

It seems that lawyer has quite bad reputation.

Dorian is not (was not) a public person. They published his name, photos, full details based on the incorrect assumption that he is the creator of bitcoin.

The question is did they have a reasonable information to violate his (and his family) privacy. Not to mention they might have put his safety on the risk, as the real Satoshi allegedly owns a huge amount of bitcoins.

yes, they will get lesson from this. They must confirm the validity of the news' resource before publishing them.

And when will bitcoin users come up to that amount of money? Newsweek is worth a lot.

some wannabe journalist wants to make a name for themselves.  deserve to be sued and fired!

Sounds like a bit of a slippery slope. 

Well said.

We are launching a tiny news site for cryptocurrency info in a few days, if you would like us to reprint this message under your authorship we can do that.  just let me know.

??? Coinbuddy is not an author. He just copy/pasted from linked article. Just quote the article on your site, not the post. No need to ask him for permission.

An author is a person who materializes a message -- in this case, as electronic text.    Notice that he offered up his opinion as well as quoted material, that indicates ownership of the message, not as the originator of the message, but as someone dialed into it.    He clearly has a message that he wants to push forward, I want to help him do just that.

My interest isn't so much about the message as much as it is about the vision of the messenger that passionately wants his righteous message moved forward.

   

If I copy/paste Satoshi's whitepaper - would you consider me as an author of it?


Can you point the part of the text that is 'his opinion'? Did you even bother to click on the link?

No I didn't bother to click on the link because I wasn't interested in the message only the messenger.    The OP used quotes to insinuate that he was quoting another.
I only click on the link as a result of your desire to push the issue.   

Oh, well.




 

Has there been a formal complained filed against them ? Also when is the hearing and its result due ? And who filed a lawsuit against them ?

If you are outside then you do not have a reasonable expectation that your picture will not be taken. This is regardless if you are a "public" person (???) or not.

Newsweek took information that was available publicly, published a group of such information and made a conclusion (one that was likely faulty). This is also not illegal as anyone could find this information if they wanted to.

If Newsweek thinks that something is newsworthy then they have the right to publish it. They have an incentive to make an accurate conclusion regarding facts as if they do not then people will not take them seriously and will be unable to fill their advertisement spots 

I don't want to pose as an expert, which I'm not and I know nothing about US laws in this matter.
But based on laws in some of the European countries you cannot just publish someone's image and details, unless it's a 'public person' (politician, actor etc).

It's not about taking a pictures or publically available information, but about publishing it.
To use extreme example, would it be legal if some reporter took a picture of you and published it (together with your details) labelling you as 'possible paedophile' - conclusion based only on fact that he saw you walking near primary school? The common sense dictates it wouldn't and I'm sure you could easily sue them.

So think it's all down to whether Newsweek had evidence 'strong enough' to make such assumption. And that's for the court to decide.

What they posted was newsworthy.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/publication-private-facts

This sounds to be like the lawyers want to see if they can collect money from donators to launch a suit.  You have to be careful with these lawyers.  One ambulance chaser, Derek Newman, used to run around claiming to be a first amendment advocate
http://www.firstamendmentminute.com/

Then he decided it was a good idea to take a case where an actress sued a web site that revealed her true age:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/imdb-wins-lawsuit-actress-age-437828

Dude, read all of what you said in reverse.    

What you essentially said is that everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law (and perhaps after all appeals have expired as well).  

Well, if you were to wait for that to report anything shady, suspicious, or the like, then you would only be reporting old news.  


You don't get a job working at Newsweek just because you worked on the Yearbook committee in high school, all stories go up the ladder before going to print.  

Any reasonable person seeing the evidence from the side of the reporter would be reasonably expected to draw the same preliminary conclusions -- "that might be him, I want to interview him".   After you, the reporter, get his side of the story you might be more or less convinced of the facts of the matter.  


Nevertheless, based on your belief that 'famous' people are fair game for the media, how do you go about proving that the dude identified was not in fact the famous person they believed him to be?  

How many times have people said they are or are not someone just to distract from the truth?

That's arbitrary. If he is Satoshi, then yes it's newsworthy. But if such assumption was based only on questionable evidence (name-match, the fact he didn't trust government too much etc) then the court may decide it was not newsworthy and that they violated his privacy.

That's arbitrary. If he is Satoshi, then yes it's newsworthy. But if such assumption was based only on questionable evidence (name-match, the fact he didn't trust government too much etc) then the court may decide it was not newsworthy and that they violated his privacy.



Edit:


That's not at all what I said. Dude.

If I wanted to quote you I would have done so, but I choose to paraphrase.  All actions, be they inside of or outside of court, prior to a finding of guilt in court are simply accusations, including any lodged by the press or anyone in this forum.

The press has a responsibility as a professional entity to act in a professional manner, it does not appear that they have acted in any actionable way.   If anyone thought the media was abusing that privileged certainly a demand for injunctive relief would have been sought -- was there any such injunction or restraining order granted or even filed against the media?

At this point this is all old no-one-really-cares-anymore news.

it is not "arbitrary" but it is open to some interpretation.  They could have a judge decide but they could have a jury decide rather than the courts.  In any case due to the number of news stories and discussions I just think it is a play by the lawyers to get some cash and the claim will go nowhere.

Even if this is true or not,they do get deserved to be sued for it.
I mean after all, since this was proven not to be true, why did they refuse to take it down and/or apologize publicly?

Agree, I'd love to see them paying compensation to Dorian. But as far as I know, Newsweek never admitted that they were wrong. If they did publically apologize, it would not only damage their reputation, but would make suing them much easier.


It's pretty obvious. If they'll manage to get crowdfunded, they will get their money either way, win or lose.


EDIT:

So far they raised ~1.9 BTC (and already cashed out 0.635 ?):

https://blockchain.info/address/1LK3uHXhXPzR6M7AfAMQk4vBgTtQLw2kGC (https://blockchain.info/address/1LK3uHXhXPzR6M7AfAMQk4vBgTtQLw2kGC)

hahahaha, how was it "proven not to be true"   because he said: "no, that's not me" ? hahahahahaa

Does newsweek not have it's right to freedom of speech and the freedom of the press? The idea behind both of these rights is that they allow for people to say and publish controversial ideas without the thread of criminal or civil prosecution.

The only thing that newsweek could potentially be liable for is slander however they did not publish anything false that is negative to his reputation

He should sue and let them defend their right to be bad journalists.

This is actually a right of Newsweek. If they are bad journalists then people will not buy their magazine nor will they read their news on their website. Not checking facts and reporting false information they believe to be true is not illegal and if they were to lose such a case it would have chilling effects on the first amendment.

You mean that piece of paper they used to call the Bill of Rights? That is so 20th century.