back to article Beatle associate can sue over 'charlatan' claim, says High Court

A former associate of The Beatles has won the right to sue in England over a New York Times article which called him a charlatan. Because the article was published online the case should go ahead, the High Court has said. John Alexis Mardas was known as 'Magic Alex' when he associated with The Beatles in the late 1960s. In a …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Dave

    Wider Readership

    Of course, now he's had the publicity, a lot more people in the UK will be aware of it, which must help his case. They won't be able to throw it out on the grounds of insufficient readership.

    Or is it just me and a load of bots that post comments to El Reg? ROTM?

    Hello? Anyone there?

  2. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Eady strike sgain

    The man who has almost single-handedly made British lible law an internaional laughing stock. The man who ordered an American author to pay damages to a Saudi Arabian businessman over a book never published in Britain.

  3. Chris

    Libel tourism

    This is another case of "libel case tourism", where individuals sue on the British courts over material published elsewhere in the world. In previous cases, several books have been withdrawn from publication in the US and pulped because of a verdict in British courts. This has raised the hackles of publishers, journalists and authors - particularly in the US, where this is seen as an affront to freedom of speech. It has become high profile enough that US politicians and senior figures in the US judicial system have said they will act to prevent the enforcement of these kind of libel actions. Hopefully, this will be one of the last cases of libel tourism we see. (It's interesting to note that the Right Dishonorable Eady is usually the judge ruling on them, and always in favour of the litigant).

  4. Rachel

    the name says it all

    Magic Alex, eh? George Martin described him as a provider of gadgets to the always novelty hungry Lennon, and the remaining Beatles describe on the Anthology the vast problems that they had with his designs.

    The idea that this guy is bringing a defamation suit in the UK against the NYT is simply ludicrous - maybe the judge just has ants in his pantz cos the NYT c**ps all over UK equivalents.

    When someone is a notable nommer in the existing public record, how rude does one have to be before they are taken to court for 'telling the truth' or, at the very least, providing an expurgated opinion?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    J. Eady has form

    he was party to the Ehrenfeld/Mahfouz libel case.

    your search term for today is "libel tourism"

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Obligatory quote

    "I'll sue you in England!"

    Paris, because she's had her online articles examined before now.

  7. Mark Flingstone

    Really

    there must be a way to compel this guy to prove his magic in court.

    If he backs out, case closed; If he agrees, case closed as well.

    However I might be wrong. So Alex, please invite Harry or Hermione or other schoolmates of yours, and turn NYT+IHT journos into frogs, although I warn you - some in the audience won't be able to see the difference.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Streisand effect

    Only 27 hits? Well, here's the article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/arts/music/07yogi.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

    And its all on 1 page, not the annoying spreading of an article over multiple-"must get ads in our patrons faces" -pages.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm wait

    If the article was printed in the US , why are they being sued in the UK. Hmm were have I heard that before..

  10. J
    Happy

    Hm...

    And with the publicity this could be getting now (I for one had never heard of said article), could he sue for more, since many more people know it now, and will search for the offending article, etc.?

  11. Jeff F.

    Justice rocks!

    Way to go Mr. Justice Eady! Keep the lawyers from making a mountain out of a molehill.!

    He reminds me of what my image of Charles Laughton as justice might be!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thank you Rachel. No thank you Mr Justice Eady.

    I knew I'd heard of this Magic Alex bloke, and I knew it wasn't in a US newspaper. I now know it was probably something I saw in Anthology (or maybe it was something I read in any decent Beatles writeup anywhere).

    Eady has indeed got form too. Seek for Eady and "carter ruck", and ye shall find... well, see what you make of it. Allegedly.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He's being libelled on RetardPedia

    even though lower down in the entry these claims are refuted.

    Wikipedia, it hates itself, which is nice.

  14. Daniel

    I'll try not to post anything that leads to libel...

    ...but continuing existence of 'Magic Alex' does go a long way to explaining why the Beatles estate will always have something of a bee in their bonnet about anything where with the words 'Apple' and 'electronics' and 'innovation' are linked together in people's heads.

This topic is closed for new posts.