I enjoyed talking with Anna Devlantes and Corey McPherrin this morning on our local Fox affiliate’s morning program about defamation online and the challenging problem of unmasking anonymous defendants. The video is embedded below, or you can go here if it’s not showing up in the RSS feed.
Archive for the ‘Defamation’ Category
Communications Decency Act immunizes hosting provider from defamation liability
August 5th, 2010
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Johnson v. Arden, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 3023660 (8th Cir. August 4, 2010) The Johnsons sell exotic cats. They filed a defamation lawsuit after discovering that some other cat-fanciers said mean things about them on Complaintsboard.com. Among the defendants was the company that hosted Complaintsboard.com – InMotion Hosting. The district court dismissed the case [...]
Forwarder of defamatory email protected under Section 230
February 28th, 2010
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Hung Tan Phan v. Lang Van Pham, — Cal.Rptr.3d —, 2010 WL 658244 (Cal.App. 4 Dist. Feb. 25, 2010) Defendant, a veteran of the Vietnamese military, forwarded an email to some other Vietmamese veterans which apparently defamed another veteran. He didn’t just forward the email, though. He added some commentary at the beginning, which said [...]
How Section 230 is like arson laws when it comes to enjoining website operators
January 12th, 2010
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The case of Blockowicz v. Williams, — F.Supp.2d —, 2009 WL 4929111 (N.D. Ill. December 21, 2009), which I posted on last week is worthy of discussion in that it raises the question of whether website operators like Ripoff Report could get off too easily when they knowingly host harmful third party content. Immunity under [...]
Injunction against defamatory content could not reach website owner
January 7th, 2010
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Blockowicz v. Williams, — F.Supp.2d —, 2009 WL 4929111 (N.D. Ill. December 21, 2009) (This is a case from last month that has already gotten some attention in the legal blogosphere, and is worth reporting on here in spite of the already-existing commentary.) Plaintiffs sued two individual defendants for defamation over content those defendants posted [...]
Was on CNN.com talking about Twitter
July 30th, 2009
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Great time today being on CNN.com Live talking about the recent lawsuit filed against a Twitter user for talking about mold in her apartment and an apparently uncaring management company. Video embedded below. (Or click through if it’s not showing up in the RSS feed). Embedded video from CNN Video
Expedited electronic discovery includes subpoena to ISP and imaging of defendants’ hard drives
October 24th, 2008
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Allcare Dental Management, LLC v. Zrinyi, No. 08-407, 2008 WL 4649131 (D. Idaho October 20, 2008) Plaintiffs filed a defamation lawsuit against some known defendants as well as some anonymous John Doe defendants in federal court over statements posted to Complaintsboard.com. The plaintiffs did not know the names or contact information of the Doe defendants, [...]
No CDA immunity for letting co-defendant use computer to post material
September 9th, 2008
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Capital Corp. Merchant Banking, Inc. v. Corporate Colocation, Inc., No. 07-1626, 2008 WL 4058014 (M.D.Fla., August 27, 2008) Professor Goldman points us to a recent decision in a case where the plaintiff alleged that one of the individual defendants “allowed [a co-defendant] to use ‘a computer registered in her name’ to make . . . [...]
California’s anti-SLAPP statute not applied to request for subpoena
June 12th, 2008
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Request for subpoena to unmask anonymous defendants in prospective Internet defamation case did not set forth “cause of action” or initiate judicial proceedings. Tendler v. www.jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com, No. H031130, 2008 WL 2352497 (Cal.App. 6th Dist. June 10, 2008) Some people (anonymously) set up several blogs on Google’s Blogger, and posted some nasty things about Rabbi Tendler. [...]
Complaint amended in AutoAdmit defamation lawsuit
November 13th, 2007
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The saga surrounding the defamation lawsuit filed by a couple of Yale law students against some anonymous posters to the AutoAdmit forum board keeps brewing. According to this article from the Yale Daily News, the plaintiffs, two female law students, have amended their complaint against the 38 John Doe defendants. This time around, they omitted [...]
