Judge Tosses Defamation Suit

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3 commentsThursday, April 3, 2008

Score Another For Citizen Journalism

Judge Tosses Defamation Suit

3 Comments

By Fiancee (WPN reader) - Tue, 06/17/2008 - 13:57

Great article

I am interseted to see what other thing will be brought to court that deal with online content.

By Christopher Grotke (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/03/2008 - 12:41

A slight correction - our legal representation was by Jim Maxwell in Brattleboro, and we still owe him about $1000. (Donations can come through our "Feed the Kitty" paypal links on our homepage if anyone feels like helping us out.) He did a great job.

David Ardia at CitMediaLaw.org was a great help, and their site did an excellent job of both gathering all the documents in the case as they became available, and adding their own commentary. Everyone involved in citizen media, and running websites that encourage debate and discussion, should check out all they have to offer. Highly recommended, and a great resource.

One of the things we found interesting is that the ruling shows that we are a bit more strict with our policies than the law says we have to be. The comment in question was signed by a registered user of the site, and posted without us previewing it in any way (like all comments to the site). The judge said that even if it were anonymous, and even if we had edited it, website operators are not responsible for the comments of others.

We're going to keep doing things the way we have been doing them.

By Jason Lee Miller (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/03/2008 - 13:14

Oh I see...

At first I was confused by the correction, now I see the problem was with the word "counsel." Yes, I should have anticipated the confusion and will update in a moment. I didn't intend for "counsel" to imply legal representation. I meant it in the advice and support sense. In context, I can see how that's confusing. Thanks for pointing it out.