Not in the Margaret Mead era any more: two New Guinea tribesmen are planning to sue The New Yorker over a Jared Diamond article. [New York Post, Forbes, Fran Smith]
Posts Tagged ‘libel slander and defamation’
Discussing a Florida company on your blog
Is that enough, without more, to subject you to the jurisdiction of a Florida federal court in a resulting defamation lawsuit? [Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion; Citizen Media Law]
Another “D-bag” defamation suit gone
The Smoking Gun (via Childs/TortsProf): “A Las Vegas party promoter has dropped a libel lawsuit over his portrayal as a ‘douchebag’ in the book ‘Hot Chicks with Douchebags.'” Earlier here, here, etc.
Telemarketing consumer site menaced by foreign suits
Julia Forte of North Carolina
operates a pair of web sites — 800notes.com and whocallsme.com — that provide an interesting consumer service. These web sites include message boards that permit consumers who receive calls from telemarketers to comment on their experiences; other consumers who receive a call from a given telemarketer can take a look and make a decision about whether they want to take a particular call.
U.S. law protects her in this mission, but telemarketers who don’t like the critiques made available on her sites have begun suing, or threatening to sue her, in other countries where protections for online speech are less robust. [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P Blog]
Help us out, Deltona taxpayers
“Florida City Authorizes Use of City Funds to Sue for Libel of Government Officials” [Eugene Volokh; Citizen Media Law, who includes an update about the mayor changing his mind]
How-to guide for harassing websites
And it’s disguised as a perfectly respectable legal article in the New Jersey Law Journal; the sections on “self-help” tactics and on denouncing adversaries to state consumer agencies and the FTC are worthy of particular attention, although remarkable bits of hardball advice are in general sprinkled throughout.
February 23 roundup
Free speech and press issue:
- Even truthful statements libelous if made with actual malice? Outcry at “dangerous” First Circuit decision [Ambrogi/LegaLine, Bayard/Citizen Media Law, Coleman/Likelihood of Confusion]
- Eric Holder’s open and frank national dialogue on race sure isn’t going to take place in the workplace, thanks to fear of being sued [Goldberg, NRO “Corner”]
- Obama says he opposes revival of talk-radio-squelching Fairness Doctrine, though some in Congress favor it; some worry that under-the-radar FCC rules could accomplish some of the same effects without using the name [Matt Lasar and Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica; Ken @ Popehat] Both FCC and Waxman’s office deny report that Congressman met with staffers to promote new controls [Broadcasting & Cable, Unfair Doctrine]
- Freedom wins a round: Court strikes down California violent-videogame law as unconstitutional [Eugene Volokh] Cockfighting is lawful in Puerto Rico, but U.S. Congress has banned videos of same from the States, raising First Amendment issue [David Post @ Volokh; our posts in 1999 and last year]
- Are they being extraterritorial, or are we? “Congressional Efforts to Stymie ‘Libel Tourism’ Rev Up” [Citizen Media Law]
- Ordinarily there’s no legal penalty for whistling the theme to “The Addams Family” at your neighbors, unless you’re under a court order to refrain from doing so, in which case you might be locked up like one U.K. man [UPI]
- Any First Amendment implications in CPSIA bonfires of old children’s books? [Ted Frank, Valerie Jacobsen and others in comments]
February 12 roundup
- Driving through town of Tenaha, Texas? Might be better to get accosted by the robbers and not the cops [San Antonio Express-News via Balko, Hit and Run]
- Location-tracking Google Latitude application could pose liability problems for unwary employers [PoL]
- EMTALA law obliges hospital ERs to treat many patients. OK, so how about ELRALA next, for lawyers? [White Coat Rants]
- New Jersey judge dismisses defamation suit by three women whose picture appeared in book “Hot Chicks with D-Bags” [Smoking Gun, earlier here and, relatedly, here] More: Taranto, WSJ “Best of the Web”, scroll.
- Myrhvold, often assailed as patent troll, sponsors quote/unquote neutral Stanford study of patent litigation [MarketWatch]
- Some thoughts on much-publicized tussle between Associated Press and Shepard Fairey over Obamacon photo [Plagiarism Today]
- Creative uses of immigration law: get that little homewrecker deported [Obscure Store]
- More than a few real estate lawyers were “hip-deep in mortgage fraud”. Will they tiptoe away? [Scott Greenfield]
- Roundup on the awful Employee Free Choice Act [PoL]
Markopolos’s case against Madoff
Ray Pellecchia at the NYSE blog Exchanges (via Salmon) writes that had Harry Markopolos sounded the alarm about Bernard Madoff by putting his charges up on a blog, instead of taking them to the SEC and selected investors, there’s a good chance the Madoff scheme would have come tumbling down in short order — except, of course, for the not-unreasonable fear that Madoff might have sued.
P.S.: Unrelatedly, this AP report quotes Markopolos as testifying to the Hill panel yesterday that “the SEC is overlawyered”. (Most of the news accounts, however, insert a hyphen in the quote: ‘over-lawyered'”.)
Slumdog Millionaire
The Bollywood masala homage, Slumdog Millionaire, received ten Oscar nominations today, including one for best picture. It’s an excellent movie, if one forgives the entertainment world’s plot device of having a game show take place live, when in fact virtually all of them are taped.
And where there’s success, there’s those who try to hijack it for their own publicity stunt. Such is the case of Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, who is suing two Indians associated with the movie, A R Rahman and actor Anil Kapoor, claiming that the use of the word “slumdog” is defamatory to Mumbai slumdwellers, and will get a court hearing on February 5. (Kapoor uses the word in the movie.) I know not Indian defamation and free speech law–this strikes me as the sort of issue Salman Rushdie had with people who did not grok the concept of “fiction”–but until this case is dismissed, let us hope Vishwakarma does not get a hold of Huckleberry Finn. (AFP, “Slumdog stars sued for defaming slum-dwellers”, Jan. 22).