The Internet is becoming a powerful forum for the airing of lovers' grievances,
and the trend, underscored by high-profile breakups around the world, is stoking
debate about Internet privacy and legal issues.

The British actress Tricia Walsh-Smith used a video posted on YouTube to bid
farewell to her businessman husband Philip Smith and berate him over his alleged
sexual preferences. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales turned to his own creation
to announce the termination of a relationship with Canadian journalist Rachel
Marsden, who retaliated by selling some of Wales' personal property on eBay.

In Italy, the acrimonious end to the marriage of an American musician and his
Italian concert pianist wife has led to the hijacking of the latter's personal
Web site and, some say, has exposed the inadequacy of privacy protections in
the face of the enormous freedom of speech opportunities offered by the Web.

The Rome daily La Repubblica compared the marital breakup of New York musician
and composer Wayne Gulezian and classical pianist Loredana Brigandi to Hollywood's
"War of the Roses." But rather than barricading doors and hurling
plates, in this case the violence has been purely verbal and "restricted"
to the infinite spaces of the blogosphere.

The conflict broke out in public last December when Brigandi received an SMS
(Short Message Service) from her estranged husband, inviting her to take a look
at her
personal Web site. Instead of a glowing account of her achievements in discovering
and recording the work of little-known classical piano composers, it contained
a diatribe against her and accusations that she was denying Gulezian access
to their five-year-old son.

Brigandi has complained to the Italian legal authorities and the case is being
investigated by prosecutors in Tivoli, a central Italian town near Rome. In
the meantime she has created a new Web site, www.loredanabrigandi.com, to continue
publicizing her artistic career. But she has so far been unable to obtain the
removal of the pirated Web site.

"The Web site was originally created by her husband but was bought by
my client, using her credit card," said Brigandi's lawyer, Giovanni Nappi.
"On March 10 he illegally took possession of it, paying US$45 to secure
the domain. As far as the American server is concerned, he is the owner and
can continue to use it, at least until there is a ruling on the matter by an
Italian court."

It was startling how quickly defamation could be spread over Internet and how
inadequate were the opportunities for obtaining redress, Nappi, a Rome-based
lawyer, said in a telephone interview. Gulezian risked a suspended prison sentence
if convicted by the Italian courts on charges of defamation and violation of
privacy, he said.

"If someone were to write something offensive about the pope, the site
would be taken down immediately. We need to have a system that provides a possibility
of rapid redress for ordinary people as well," Nappi said.

Gulezian has a personal Web
site and a blog,
operated under the professional name David Wayne. One contains photos from happier
times showing him embracing his wife in a variety of romantic settings and a
link to her site. That site now hosts a long response to the La Repubblica article,
in which Gulezian explains that he was driven to start writing against his wife
because she had cut contact with his son. "Now finally I have some power
on my side, the power of the truth," he wrote. The animosity normally reserved
for divorce court papers has even spilled onto Brigandi's Wikipedia entry. The
last line, evidently added by Gulezian, reads: "She is currently using
her son as a pawn in her chess game against her husband by not letting him speak
to his father." And there are extensive comments -- mainly in defense of
Brigandi -- on blogs devoted to the dispute. There may be some light at the
end of the tunnel for Brigandi, however. Last month a court in Milan handed
down a suspended two years and four months prison sentence and a €5,000
(US$7,960) fine to a 32-year-old man who had posted erotic photos of his former
girlfriend on a personal Web site.

» posted by abennett

IDG News Service

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