Just trying to help…….don’t sue me, I’m just the messenger!

The media likes to print that I sued because someone called me a name. If the blog was available you would have a better idea of why I went forth with this lawsuit. Lets just say that it was defamatory.

Uh if I’m understanding correctly, Rosemary called you names you thought those names were defamatory.

Google agreed and the judge agreed. So why can’t you just leave it at that.

Because Google certainly didn’t agree, hence the defending themselves in court and the judge didn’t agree with anything. The judge ordered Google to hand over the bloggers details so that you could then pursue a defamatory case. The judge nor google agreed anything was defamatory.

After soothing your own ego you chose not to pursue the defamatory case remember?

So no I will not sue you for calling me names, I always take into account who is the name caller before I fight back.

Yet you launched legal action against an “anonymous blogger” for calling you a skank?

Either you then knew who the blogger was before launching legal action and decided to waste everybody’s time anyway or you didn’t. Which one was it?

But I will kindly ask you to remove the picture of me that you have posted. I have already submitted my DMCA notice to Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Uh, you do know that the DMCA is to stop people from removing DRM from digital media right? Best of luck pursuing a DCMA case against Google, Yahoo and Bing (lol). I’m not sure exactly what a search engine has to do with me hosting the file on my own server but nonetheless as a gesture of good will I’ve removed the offending photo.

Please in the future stay off the internet Liskula, people like you are like a digital holocaust against common sense.

This is why I believe the whole excercise was just an expensive game to find out who it was, undoubtedly Cohen knew it was someone she knew as Van pointed out she was a nobody prior to this.

In Australia it’s kind of different, there is that Gutnick case but as far as I know internet defamation is a grey minefield that hasn’t been tested.

2clix threatened to take Whirlpool to court over online defamation but went bust before they could (can’t remember if they pulled out before going bankrupt but it never went anywhere), then more recently Greg Smith launched a 42 million dollar case against z-geek, although last I heard it wasn’t going anywhere.

Until somebody actually goes to court over it and sets a precedence online publishers in Australia have no idea. Usually the plaintiffs are single parties and threaten rather then actually launch any action as it’s quite costly to do so.

The big players have enough money to drag it out so nobody really goes after them, only the small publishers. What happens then is either the publisher complies and retracts or the plaintfiff realises they don’t have enough money (read: it’s not worth it) to launch fullscale legal action over.

The big players won’t launch anything against anyone because they know it’s the quickest way to kill your reputation and there’s little to be gained as any action against an opinion 9/10 times means widespread exposure of the information.

Ideally we need legal guidlines outlining content publishing rather then this ‘wait and see’ approach but I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon.

Now, can an opinion be defamation?I would say no and I don’t know how one can be guilty for having an opinion.

Yes it can when published in a public form. Defamation laws, in Australia at least, are a little all over the shop (I think it might still be state based, not sure), but essentially defamation is damage to your reputation in the eyes of others or your peers. The specifics of the damage and whether they are based on facts etc. will undoubtedly come into play in a defamation case, but it being someone’s opinion does not exclude it.

I think the big problem here is the how something is stated. For example “Oz Soapbox is a God” is stated by the writer as a fact. If it was “I think Oz Soapbox is a God” it’s more of an opinion.

Now, can an opinion be defamation? I would say no and I don’t know how one can be guilty for having an opinion.

The internet can be used as a vicious tool by nasty people to defame others – and that’s unfair.

Is having an opinion defamation though? How exactly are you going to prove you’re not a skank in court?

You can’t just rock up, scream defamation and then expect a guilty verdict. You’ve got to prove it isn’t true and that it was being presented as fact.

It’s like trying to sue someone for defamation for calling you an arsehole. How are you going to disprove that?

This is a great point. Even if she wins this battle she will have lost the war. She may have been right but the smart thing to do would have been to ignore it and not add creedence to the accusation.

What is the world coming to?

You shouldn’t write stuff about people if you wouldn’t be prepared to put your name to it (security reasons aside).

Once upon a time, I wouldn’t need to explain this concept. People were a lot more respectful and polite – what has changed?

The internet can be used as a vicious tool by nasty people to defame others – and that’s unfair.