well. this seems a little much. there was more talk about it on the oxegen boards. are they going to sue themselves? you can't stop people talking on messageboards. it seems excessive.

ANY heads up as to what this may attest too.....? TW.

Do they see boards.ie as an easy target or something, how come they haven't gone after RTE, Liveline apparently tore Oxegen to shreads? How come they haven't gone after the printed press (well they threatened)? This is a black day for free speech and the after gig internet conversation in Ireland. It seems to me gig goers are being taken for granted in this country, every gig now seems to be an instant sellout. Has this made promoters complacent? Definitely, look at ticket prices, they continue to soar. Now it looks like the one thing a gig/festival goer has on its side, a voice, is trying to be censored. Maybe its time the gig goer in Ireland asserted some of its rights and fought back in the most powerful way any consumer can by keeping their money in their pocket.

Theyre trying to cover their asses on the homepage now: OXEGEN 2006 STATEMENT - THE FACTS Can we eliminate all anti-social behaviour? Well, that is a greater social question. 1. Festival attendance was 80,000 per day, with 70,000 of those camping at the event using over 15,000 tents between Friday 7th July – Monday 10th July 2006. The event has been deemed a resounding success by the authorities, artists and fans. 2. The Official OXEGEN Garda figures from Friday 7th July to Monday 10th July 2006 are as follows: *There is one case of an Alleged sexual assault that Gardai are currently investigating which was reported to Naas Gardai on Monday 10th July. MCD will provide every assistance that may be required to aid such an investigation. *There were just over 50 arrested and NOT 500 as reported by The Irish Sun newspaper on 12th July 2006. *These arrests included offences for public order, theft, dealing in illegal substances and criminal damage (source Naas Gardai 27th July 2006). *There were 386 Detections for Drug Offences. (source Naas Gardai 27th July 2006). 3. There were over 15,000 tents on the campsite. The majority of the 23 tents were set on fire by their owners when leaving site early Monday morning, rather than taking them home. All fires were quickly extinguished. The majority of tents that were set on fire by their owners were those that can be purchased from 14.95 euros from high street stores. 4. Security measures taken on campsite included Risks assessments, with control measures introduced accordingly, ample security were in place as were Watchtowers, Professional Fire Fighters, Civil Defence Fire Fighting Unit and First Aid, 24 hour hospital with 2 doctors and A&E consultant, Welfare services, Gardai in attendance for back up if required. 5. There was no rioting or looting as reported by The Sunday Mirror newspaper on 16th July 2006. 6. As with all major public gatherings a small number of individuals were dealt with by An Garda Siochana and event security. ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED AT ANY ANY MCD EVENT. There were 1,500 security, 200 Gardai and 250 Medical staff on duty. 7. Security companies are licensed under the Private Security Authority and have achieved/are IS999 compliant. They include Sword Eventguard International (security contract for Point since it opened 15 years ago), Frontline Security (security contracts for RDS/Croke Park etc.) and Eventsec Security (security contracts for Odyssey/BBC). 8. Of the 80,000 fans who attended OXEGEN during the hours of 8AM Friday 7th July – 6PM Monday 10th July, 49 fans (represents 0.06% of fans) were treated in hospital suffering from the following complaints and ALL have since been released. Query fractures - 19 Stitches/casts - 16 Medical conditions not related to event - 7 Drug/alcohol misuse - 7 9. The OXEGEN message board was always scheduled to close 5 days after event and will re-open when we go on sale on Friday 10th November for OXEGEN 2007, all comments good/bad can be directed to contact@mcd.ie which is highlighted on sites. MCD welcomes and actively seeks feed-back from fans both positive and negative regarding all of our events. 10. To date MCD can confirm we have received 76 complaints from the 80,000 fans attended OXEGEN representing less than 0.1% of the total attendance, an excellent result by any company's standard. "With all major events, there are always a number of lessons to be learned. Anti-social behaviour cannot and will not be tolerated at any MCD event. We will continue to provide a high standard of care for our customers. And our security team along with the GARDA will provide all the appropriate protections and those individuals found to have caused any unnecessary distress for other customers will be dealt with appropriately," stated Denis Desmond Managing Director MCD Productions. MCD would especially like to thank all the well behaved fans for ensuring OXEGEN 2006 was a great success, the residents of Naas and the surrounding areas, Kildare County Council, Doctors, Medics, Red Cross, Fire Services, HSE, Security, Production staff, Subcontractors, the staff of Punchestown Racecourse and in particular like to thank An Gardai Siochana for their continuous support and we look forward to hosting OXEGEN 2007 on 7th & 8th July 2007.

MCD are pretty much arguing that any comments published on the internet should be bound by the same legalities that the printed media have to abide by. I do not know if there are any concrete laws to cover electronic publishing here in Ireland so this is most definitely a grey area. MCD are going to argue that what was said by posters on boards.ie was legally ''defamatory'' and that boards.ie are responsible for the alleged ''libelous'' comments. MCD are taking one hell of a risk here, they lose this they will compound their post-oxegen PR digging your own grave disaster, they win then this could change what is and what isn't said on the internet here in Ireland forever which would start a dangerous precident for future of internet free speech. Do MCD have a case? Well neither MCD or the posters on boards.ie can prove their arguments. What MCD put up on the oxegen site to argue their case on Friday is all statistics, but that's not fact . With the posters on boards.ie it is opinion and consensus but again no fact. In other words this is simply a tit for that ''I'm right, you're wrong!'', ''no you're wrong, I'm right!'' case but neither said can possibly prove they're right or prove the other side is wrong. Boards.ie do have a disclaimer when a user signs up that every message express the views of the author etc. so I'd hope that would cover them. MCD don't want a courtcase here, they want this to go quiet by boards.ie settling with them. What matters is how strong boards.ie are on this one. Boards.ie have shown they are scared s**tless of MCD (and MCD know this!) by banning their users from making any comments about them or Oxegen. If boards.ie blink and make leeway for MCD on this one by apologising or settling then it will open up a can of worms with endless amounts of other coporate bullboys jumping the censorship bandwagon. Boards.ie are run like a facist dicatorship themselves so I wouldn't shed too many tears for the big shots there if they were shut down but I really hope MCD rot in hell once and for all over this as the only motive for all this is to censor the internet because they know it's powerful enough to see them lose their licence for Oxegen next year.

i can't believe MCD are persisting with this. it means, as previous posters have said, that not only does the Oxegen bad news story continue to run (there was a big piece in The Sunday Times yesterday) but they also have got punters backs up. time for MCD's pr people to take some lessons in story management. and, worse, when next years Oxegen kicks in, guess what all the press and punters will be talking about? bet it wont be the line-up! una - did your Oxegen story run in the Sunday Tribune yet?

yeah, couldnt find it at all Una.

Has our Una been a victim of the MCD hit squads ? We, the people, demand the truth !!

indeed pilchard... mcd have handled this about as badly as they could have a simple "apologies if anyone had an uncomfortable experience - we'll try to locate the source of the problems and eradicate for next year giving you an even better festival for 2007" would have done the job... even if they had completely ignored everything, it would have gone away fairly quickly... instead it's become a massive talking point

Reminiscent of The Emporer's New Clothes, is how I describe mcd's atitude to it.

Hey there, Newbie here. THis isn't the only incident of an online forum being sued over comments made. Another forum in the UK has been sued by a leading baby-book writer (I know - I may be an indie fan, but in my other life, I'm a (single) mum too :)). Apparently she has grounds...not sure if it's because the conversations persist online that makes it different to the spoken word, but I think this is possibly just the beginning of a slew of these kinds of lawsuits. Another Irish forum recently pulled all negative posts about advertisers on their site. :( Ais.

Welcome on board yoshimi. Nice to see new people joining. I think that there is a massive misperception out there that the web is all about free speach and all. Unfortunately its far from it. Hence one of the requirements for moderators on messageboards.

I think the Irish media have handled this pretty badly. I took them weeks to report the oxegen story, which I think is grossly over exaggerated. The fact is, MCD pay Irish media quite a lot in advertising. Any article I've seen have been half hearted in criticising MCD. MCD are notorious for this sort of thing. Another Sunday paper wrote about kids been drunk at an Eminem gig, and thus MCD banned staff from the gigs. Yoshimi is correct. A baby/moth info website was threatned with libel action. A user criticised the author of a controversial book on motherhood.

Does anyone think there is a difference between the promoters MCD/AIKEN/POD? In my experience, working for MCD one does get treated worse than POD but I was only doing local crew. IMO POD just have a better atmosphere throughout their team, though I am certainly aware that at the end of the day money is the be all and end all of the business for all promotors, it just makes things more bearable that you get treated more like an actual human being and not a another piece of meat. I hope with the success of Castlepalooza there will be more independent promotors who actually put the music and fan first to put more gigs on. MCD are the latest in the death of civilization. I hope they finally get their comeuppance. And yes I do feel strongly about this

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2310469,00.html

They're on it now but MCD have been cvnts for years and the papers are hardly taking them to the cleaners. I haven't read anything about MCD that wasn't known already. At the end of the day, the lure of free tickets and massive advertising revenue will see MCD come out shinging at the end of it