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CA Court: Message Boards Are Opinions, Not Facts
Masem writes: "According to this Newsbytes story, a CA appeals court has issued a ruling that says that typical messages posted to internet message boards can not be considered as libel or slander, as they inheritently are framed as opinions and not as statements of fact. The case stems from rather negative comments posted by defendants about a computer reseller company on the internet; the company sued for libelous comments; lower courts did initially rule for the company, but the appeals court has overturned this. While not every message posted in a public forum is safe, the court's decision seems to convey that unless the message is framed as a form of fact, then any message posted to a public internet forum should be considered as opinion, and thus cannot be considered as a libelous comment."
Heh, can't be sued for libel.
This is a stupid article, if you ask me.
Well, that should relieve everyone on Slashdot no end! :)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
why am i suprised every time a court makes a ruling that makes sense?
seriously, good work there in CA...
Now we can really bash who the heck we want with no fear of reprisals...as long as we don't say anything to make anyone think that we're stating a fact.
Bill Gates Beware [insert evil grin here]
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
this post is factless.
i know i know - bad joke
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
At least, that's a good news for Slashdot :)
Remember the Fine Print ?
"The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."
-J
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
Change to
Besides, the best defense may just be, "Hey, this is Slashdot -- you were expecting facts?";-)
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Thank God..imagine someone trying to sue you because you posted a review of their product on a message board. Imagine someone trying to sue you becaues they didn't want others to find out how crappy their product is. Basically, Message Boards = Circle of Protection Law.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
What if you post the fact that something is your opinion?
I think I may have just blown a synapse thinking of that one...
I'm a liar.
it would have been nice if they extended this ruling to include personal web pages, which have been under attack constantly by lawsuits claiming libel and slander, etc.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
With a little luck, this amazing set of insight ought to spill over to user home pages as well.
Please post your "This sucks.. hey, that's just my opinion! Ha! Get it? I'm on a message board, and i'm posting an opinion! Bet nobody else thought of making a joke like that!" messages as replies to this one, so the rest of us can ignore them more easily.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I guess that Pud at F---ed'd Company doesn't have anything to worry about anymore!
Bill Gates has no technical sense and does nothing but steal other people's ideas.
(C'mon, sue me Bill! I want my name in the news.)
In the '70s and '80s, prostaglandin drugs were used to induce violent premature labor and delivery. When used alone, there was: "...a large complication rate (42.6%) is associated with its use. Few risks in obstetrics are more certain than that which occurs to a pregnant woman undergoing abortion after the 14th week of pregnancy." Duenhoelter & Grant, "Complications Following Prostaglandin F-2 Alpha Induced Mid-trimester Abortion." Jour. of OB & GYN, Sept. 1975
Because of these problems, the D&E or Dilatation & Evacuation method was developed and largely replaced the above. It involves the live dismemberment of the baby and piecemeal removal from below.
A pliers-like instrument is used because the baby's bones are calcified, as is the skull. There is no anesthetic for the baby. The abortionist inserts the instrument up into the uterus, seizes a leg or other part of the body, and, with a twisting motion, tears it from the baby's body. This is repeated again and again. The spine must be snapped, and the skull crushed to remove them. The nurse's job is to reassemble the body parts to be sure that all are removed.
Note to self: start every comment "IMHO . . ."
True or falst: this post is a fact.
The courts are starting to smarten up (hopefully). its pretty obvious to most that message boards cant be considered reliable sources per say. I use the info all the time from boards, but i dont get upset and also dont expect it to be 100% accurate. Atleast the courts now realize this. Well one court, but that should follow for the rest of the US and world.
The first ammendment is upheld in the courts. Mirroring another reply, good work there in CA on this. :)
This offers a welcome relief after the defamation ruling in Victoria, Australia (http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story
The California case doesn't deal with jurisdiction, but it offers some blanket protectio
How about a new tag for HTML/UBB/whatever:
<fact>Linux rules, M$ drools!</fact>
This tag would lend the enclosed text more credence, but also hold the poster responsible for its content.
heh.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Oh good, I guess this means I can now say that Osama Bin Laden and Bill Gates are twin brothers, and I won't get sued for it :)
that nothing we say here against /. or Katz can get us in trouble?
the feverish oversugared lawyers at PrintCafe are trying to sue our favorite dotbomb news site to get real names of .. "Ex-DLJ", "sucky-me", and "idiot". No joke. Seems they posted some stuff that printcafe no like, and therefore they're trying to get FC's nonexistant posting logs.
How can ANYONE believe everything in a forum as fact! 80% of slashdot is BS! :)
As for the libel comment part...
Its legal to rip on people/companies if i'm expressing my opinion...
but if its FACT that the company/person DOES suck... its libel?
So.. its OK to BS, but illegal to tell the truth hehe
But aren't you guys just a little suspicious that this ruling seems impossibly clueful? Did I wake up in a parallel universe this morning, and not notice it until now? There's gotta be some angle on this, like the Supreme Court will have a suprise announcement tomorrow negating this ruling. Something.
What about the "sucks" domain name ruling, then - could a case be made such that the "sucks" part of the domain is just an opinion? Anyone remember what jurisdiction this took place in?
This has to be the most troll-attracting comment I have ever seen on /., even outdoing Jon Katz's worst or the ever-popular duplicate postings the /. editors seem prone to these days. I predict that this topic will generate a near record number of out-and-out flames and trolls. Pour those hot grits. Bring on the Penis Birds. And don't leave out the endless postings of goatse.cx.
The thought that a person could be sued like that is really terrifying... I'm glad that at least some judges are finally realizing that the internet is a medium for two way communication by anyone, rather than a one way medium for rich people and corporatins, like TV.
I also thought about how if Microsoft were to sue Slashdot...they'd be raking in the ill-gotten gains!
It's been a long time.
I think this could be used to circumvent for prosecution for manipulating the stock market by doing such things as hyping or posting false news about a particular company, as long as it was not not "framed as a form of fact". A little bit more serious than libel, yes, but it is a somewhat alarming precedent.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Fuckedcompany.com recently received a subpoena from the lawyers of Printcafe.com to cough up "records" of the anonymous posters who made slanderous comments on the site. Some of the comments were directed to the CEO's wife. It seems that Pud (owner of FC) doesn't keep records of the IP addresses of those who frequent the site. Pud said that it was too bad that he already had finished up his book, because they would have received a mention.
Since the court has deemed such messages ruled it to be "opinnion" rather than "fact" there are other ramifications. Now that such messages are opinnion, they cannot be admitted as factual evidence. An expert witness only has "opinnions" whereas a smoking gun is a "fact" and can be submitted as evidence. Sets an interesting precedent that will affect future non-related legal cases that try to submit such messages as evidence.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
"+1, Informative"...
sulli
RTFJ.
...if this is the beginning of a swing back to sense and rationality in the law, or if it's just one lone judicial candle guttering in the wind.
-- the_Librarian
If you read the entire court comments, near the end they also state:
"All postings marked as troll, offtopic, or flaimbait will be ignored; postings rated Funny may or may not be, and only those rated >4 will even be considered as possible fact. Furthermore, a first post to a message board will neither be considered fact, opinion, or funny."
I thought that was rather interesting...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Wow -- two sensible court opinions in one day! Is the moon full or something?
:)
Some things people post on message might be opinions, but just look at this link and you'll recognize that some things are just plain facts.
This surely gets down to -1, but hello mod, isn't there a little voice in your head that say that somehow this is insightful ?
Oh, darn, I am in the UK. I rescind the above!
I wonder how Pud from FC will deal with this considering the recent requests to get details regarding some posters on the FC messageboards...
The analysis of fact and opinion has been based on context and content. This ruling recognizes the context portion or the analysis. And states that it being in that forum makes it as from a disgruntled stockholder as opposed to someone in "the know" or with authority.
Even on a web posting, libel can still be found.
Fight Spammers!
It's refreshing in this time of corporate neofascism to see clear thinking from legislators and jurists. After all, such websites (/., yahoo, kur05hin, etc...) are known as "forums"--they exist solely for expression of opinion.
That said, will someone please post a review of the full text of the OT3 manual? I'm interested in your opinion.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Since they've been suing everyone and anyone who dared question their cult and all...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
hmm, strange that there are 50 comments already and noone has mentioned the Godfrey vs Demon case from a year or two back...
random link here
[for those who missed it, he sued Demon for not blocking a message about him on a Usenet newsgroup.....]
Wow, finally a legal precident in this grey area of the law. Now any company (and I've seen many of these messageboard libel cases lately) that wants to bring a case like this to court already has legal history against it. Fuckedcompany.com must be happy to hear about this, as they had the same kind of court case brought against them.
Nanite
Beat you all to it
God is real unless declared integer.
At first I applauded this decision, then I started to wonder, what do I do if 10 people start posting hundreds of negative messages about my company using different accounts? How can I prove that those posts are lies, versus opinions based on real experiences with my business? What if my business has been damaged by this, and I find out who did it? Have I any recourse at all?
/. community can help to overcome 'anonymously' planted FUD about linux or OpenBSD, due to our numbers and the fact that many of us feel we have a stake in the outcome.
For example, the
What would I, as a business owner, be able to do? I guess that instead of suing, I could politely ask the forum moderator for prominent space to answer the complaints, and challenge the posters to come forward with proof of their bad experience. If they cannot, I could claim victory, otherwise, it may be that I run a bad business. That is, I guess, one purpose of an open forum, but it still concerns me.
On the other hand, there seem to be so many bad businesses out there making plenty of money, that it is essential that the right to express an opinion is protected.
Fuck you all mother fuckers! Slashdot is the trashiest site on the internet! Haha, lets see you sue me for libel.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
(blinks). Do you mean to tell me that everything I've been reading here isn't true? Oh, man ...
So slander is still slander, even if it's done on the internet. To say that the court is saying the "message boards are opinions, not facts", is ... "hyperbole", to use a term from the article. All they said was that message boards posts are more likely to be opinion than statements made in many other forums. Just like statements made anywhere else, opinion is protected, but attempts to mislead may not be.
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
Are you a dummy? I guess you had more to say and had to follow up with another post. Also, is your name nerftoe or squash? You can't decide? Der. I love you anyway. And yes, FC rules.
Yes, you will notice that I asterix'ed out the bad word in the title of this commment.
Now that I don't have to worry about being sued for libel, I'd just like to say that CowboyNeal wears army boots.
Deep, Deep, down in the sprawling dungeons below Redmond, Washington:
...well, I guess we need to go to plan B... Send forth the flying monkeys!! Muhahaha!!"
"Yes, Yes, my precious"
"Uhhh... Mr. Gates?"
"WHAT are you doing here!"
"Uhhh... sir, I was sent my the legal team... ya know, Nazgul, Balrog, & son... it seems a court ruling in California put a crimp in our plan to rid oursleves of that vile website, slash-"
"DON'T say that word!!
"Uh, sir.. we don't have any flying monkeys... all we have is Dancing Monkey boy..."
"Crap... forget this, I'm just going to stay down here and play with my invisibility ring"
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
There's a big difference between a negative opinion and libel - an opinion is a personal statement meant to negatively impact the object, while libel is a FALSE written statement meant to negatively impact the object.
So while it's true that most of what you find on message boards is bullshit, and should thus be regarded as such without further verification, it can still be libel. All that matters is that it's a lie presented as fact to hurt the object.
However, what the defendants were accused of is TRADE libel - apparently they were saying things like "this stock sucks" clearly within the context of opinion. It could be considered libel within some contexts - but not within that of a message forum. Anyone getting stock tips off one of those is pretty dumb. So in their limited case, it seems they were not commiting libel.
cryptochrome
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
...
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
1+1 = 2.
Since this is on a message board, it's only my opinion. It is not fact.
1+1 = 3. Now that is just as valid since anything here is an opinion.
How many fingers am I holding up? four or five? You must actually SEE five fingers in order to be well!
AICN's message boards are definitely facts. Every one of them.
tcd004
I checked the date, but today is not April 1st. How is it possible that there are two postings on Slashdot today where California, the state with blackout summers and crazy laws, has issued court rulings that make sense! This is crazy. The world must be ending.
If this shows a trend, I may have to move out that way.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Defendants moved to dismiss the suit by seeking protection from a California law written to protect individuals from retaliatory lawsuits by corporations that feel they have been disparaged. These are referred to as "Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation," or SLAPP lawsuits.
Ah, the irony in a name...
Current motto: Carpe vitae globis!
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
This is scary. First I wake up feeling like I am not in this earth, then I read /. and find that there have been not one, but TWO sane court rulings involving Technology. I think I should go back to bed. I obviously woke up in parallel universe today.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
That worked out exactly the way it should have. Imagine what it would be like if you were held legally responsible for posts. On the other hand it could get rid of the post trolls on Slashdot
--
FearLinux.com
"I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!"
"No we don't! That is precisely what we don't demand!"
"We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may... or may not be Vroomfondel!"
-- thanks Douglas
Yesterday I got a message from an Saudi man, Osama.For obvious reasons I can't reveal the e-mail, or any other information for that matter, so don't bother me, okay? He said under Taliban ruling, he was as unhappy as the next guy. Now he dug his eniac out of the bunker he had hid it, and can freely post to internet to share his opinions with us. He promises that, had he known about how internet advanced, he would have never done what he did. Now he can discuss with us instead of suicidal terrorist attacks.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Check out this article. A VW dealership is suing for a post on a message board. Both the poster and the message board have been named in the trial.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
When judges read these names don't they ever just LAUGH these lawsuits out of court? Isn't our justice system bogged down enough without some jackass trying to sue over some content created by the user and not the actual site creator?
I read those two names on the top of that very leagal document and could help but to start cracking up. Maybe it's the child in me that likes that childish humor.
Damn... the Christian Scientists Lawyers have finally hit a good legal roadblock.
I don't see how it's a good thing to excuse individuals from responsibility for what they say on the Web.
Now, in this particular case, I think it's insane that PC maker would sue one of their own disgruntled customers for expressing his disgruntlement. They were idiots to sue, and the suit should have gone nowhere fast. But a blanket assertion that message board contents is strictly a matter of opinion seems like going too far in the other direction.
So now I've got the freedom to use a message board to say "My Acme widget turned out to suck, the Acme tech support sucked, and I think everyone at Acme has their head up their butt!"
But Acme can now use the same message board to say "Baba Abhui is a rotten liar. He never even bought our widget, he probably stole a broken one from God-knows-where. He'd beat up his own grandmother for a nickel! And he's a karma whore, too!" Since that's just Acme's opinion, there's nothing I can do.
The real problem is libelous companies that use their superior resources to quell individual troublemakers. If a large corporation brings libel or slander charges against me, they'll end up hurting me (time and money) even if they actually lose the case. Maybe what's needed is some mechanism to stem the tide of frivolous lawsuits like this, rather than a blanket assertion that what you say on the web just doesn't count.
Devil's Advocate Mode:
Can't you logically draw a line from "message board postings" to email since they both have the same 'lack of controls'? And from there actually give more protection to the "Make $10,000/day working from home" emails since they're not really facts, they're just opinions now?
Granted, fraud charges aren't really stopping said emails anyways, but I'd hate to see them get even more 'room to play' so to speak....
I wonder how this will affect stock trading message boards. This boy used message boards to talk up certain stocks, and I'm sure that its no worse than the crap stock analysts on cnbc or msnbc say. However, this ruling on message boards may not apply due to the fact it affects the stock market.
you mean that no one _really_ poured hot grits into natalie portmann's pants? i'm shocked....
-BlueLines
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
First, obviously, this is IMHO.
/. or yahoo in reaction to an article, the assumption would be that it is opinion.
Basically, it seems to me that this is a great example of a court backing what is actual practice, as opposed to some twisted view of reality that only a lawyer could agree with.
When I post something, I always assume others will treat it as an opinion. Sometimes they don't, which astounds me.
Now, if you could show that I had posted an opinion in many places, at many times, in a campaign obviously intended to slander (trolls beware!), then you should probably be able to sue me for slander.
But, for most practical purposes, this is obviously the correct interpretation of the matter.
Should I create a website and post my opinions on it as fixed pages, stating them as facts - e.g. "Fact - Bill Gates is the Antichrist!" - then you might be able to sue me.
But if I post a comment on
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Maybe this will put a stop to all flame wars. Thank You Justice System!
Actually, thinking back, I'm quite relieved.
-pyrrho
So now that EULA resale restrictions and message board libel are out, what's next? Will CA rule that Microsoft should be punished and not rewarded for its crimes? Will it take a swing at the DMCA? Will a massive earthquake send it to the bottom of the ocean? (Ok, so that one isn't exactly related, but it is probably just as likely...)
(if you want it)
IANAL, but it seems like your statements are still defaming (slander is defamation committed verbally, libel is defamation committed in publication). Both of your statements are presented by you as fact, for which (in your scenario) you clearly have no basis for making such claims. That's pretty cut and dry defamation in any US jursidiction I bet.
Now, if you'd said things like:
"I wouldn't be surprised if LNUX (va linux systems) management spends exhorbidant sums of money on 'business trips' to China in order to sodomize pandas." - well, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it.
So if you cite support for your position in your posts, it might be libel because you have framed your post as a fact.
I consider this a personal reward for sloppy unsupported postwurk... in other words, a reward for me personally.
-pyrrho
I wonder how this will affect stock trading message boards.
I think that it might impact suing for slander. But it most likely will not impact regulatory agencies such as the SEC from fining such individuals, as this is a regulated activity.
Criminal court (slander) is not the same as civil court, nor is it the same as regulatory agencies.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
At last some sanity among chaos.... /.
guess the lawyer got
I wonder how this affects the EFF's Kesler vs. Doe case?
Looks like the appeals court suppoenaed /. before making its judgement.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
So will /. stop sensoring Scientology articles and allow us to *tell it like it is* ?
/. removed and article / comment was when those bastards and their lawyers ripped into them/us.
The ONLY time
Catholicism = religion
Scientology = business
you know it makes sense.
LRH. "do whatever it takes to WIN "
( posted as AC cause I don't need the pain. )
Thats just like your opinion, man.
Will they blow it all in March (Sklyarov hearing), or should we start thinking about migrating to California, last refuge of the sane within the USA?
IANAL, but I bet this means we can all stop saying "IANAL".
324006
I think I will just now start every post with a little "IMHO" just so I don't have any problems. This has to be the most sensible thing I have read about U.S. courts and "cyberspace" related law in a long time.
This is a fact: Slashdot sucks. Thank you.
That what's posted on slashdot are merely opinions about the superiority of certain operating systems?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
And for a great example of a case of this going on right now, head on over to Fucked Company where some dot.bomb is trying to get FC to reveal the names of some anonymous posters who said bad things about the company and the CEO's wife.
Message Boards Are Opinions, Not Facts
/.
The justice has obviously been reading
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Someone needs to mod the Article to Trollbait. If I had my lucky Troll gun I could rack up here today.
I havent seen this many Trolls since Sparhawk.
A company that's always checking their file systems must have pretty good records of everything.
I'd think it would be obvious.
If I say 'CompuShop SUCKS' that's an opinion.
If I say 'CompuShop ripped me off for $500 and regularly fucks over it's customers', thats a statement of fact.
The former cannot get me sued. The latter (if untrue) can.
How does the fact that it's posted on a chat group matter at all?
I was just about to post that Actually this won't be a blue moon since the last full moon officially fell on Halloween. But I looked it up and it seems I am wrong. The press (including I beleive NPR) made a big deal about this year being the first time in decades that the Full Moon fell on Halloween, but it seems they were wrong, unless they meant it fell on Halloween night but after midnight.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
you are all a bunch of cock smoking nigger fuckers.
I haven't (yet) read the full decision, but it seems very limited to me. If a plaintif can show that a posting (to any forum) has actually done real damage then that renders the the "it's only an Internet forum" argument pointless.
It is also not clear to me how much the issue of whether something is presented as fact or opinion is specific to trade libel.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Is it the corp that's a big crybaby or did the potential investors read the nasty web posts and chicken out on the deal? or....
OTOH, what if the posts made by some bad people did successfully derail their deal. Are they actually true statements?
Sort of like the difference between calling someone names versus yelling "fire" in a theater. The Big Issue should be A: Is the statement true and B: If not true, did it cause damages? then let the court decide it from there.
So many people, so many egos (especially on a site like slashdot). Even when people have an opinion, or even know little about a topic, many post as if it was a fact. Often stating emphatically that whatever they think must be the truth.
I could imagine that these could, if read by say a jury that doesn't spend a lot of time online, come across as someone who seems to be stating a fact.
Perhaps we should all start using opinon tags
</OPINION>
For once the Justice Department didn't step in it.
I for one have wanted to shout to the world about my former employer and the bulls*it stunts she pulled but knew that she had her "yes-borgs" reading F*ckedCompany and others just looking for posts. It's good to know that peoples personal opinions are exactly that. Opinions. And not grounds for slander.
And that's MY opinion.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
In other news the sun rose today, and fire is still hot...
/. or fsckedcompany.com or some other venue is NOT libel, unless you're intentionally lying about a company, and even then, there may be a level of subjectiveness.
Seriously, why is this necessarily an unexpected event? In order to prove libel, I believe you must show that the person knew what they were presenting was false, and that they intended to cause harm. I think there's some additional requirements, too, like they must be identifiable to someone else and the material needs to be published/disseminated.
If I have a bad experience with Microsoft software and post my problems to a web site, that is NOT libel. If I say "Oracle sucks", well, I suppose Oracle could sue, but "sucks" is obviously my opinion. If I published a report on the web showing MS SQL Server as being 50% faster than Oracle, despite having results showing otherwise, then I probably *would* be guilty of libel.
Venting your frustration with a company on
BTW, IANAL, but I play one on TV.
This article also states that the SEC wanted it all. Lebed said not without a fight. SEC turned around and said .. ok give us some of it and keep the rest.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
libel [lb'l ] noun (plural libels)
1. LAW defamation: a false and malicious published statement that damages somebody's reputation. Libel can include pictures and any other representations that have public or permanent form.
2. attacking somebody's reputation: the making of false and damaging statements about somebody
If it's libelous, then by nature it's a false statement and CANNOT connote fact. Was the judge asleep that day in law school?
Personally I think this is a travesty because it basically says, as far as Canadian law goes anyway, you can state anything you want on the internet regardless of facts or truth and there will be no repercussions.
[...] CA appeals court has issued a ruling that says that typical messages posted to internet message boards can not be considered as libel or slander, as they inheritently are framed as opinions and not as statements of fact.
Now if only we can get him to declare a some sort of ruling on the karmic value of posts...
Stifle is an anagram for itself.
hoping your rules and wisdom choke you, since 1976
And what is the Slashdox Paradot?
"Foo or trolls: this frost is piss."
Note: "trolls" should be pronounced like it rhymes with "false" for maximum effect
Interesting that court decisions are also called opinions. In fact, Bush's presidency is just a majority opinion. Gore is president too, according to a dissenting opinion.
So I guess we can't sue the court for libel now either...
a CA appeals court has issued a ruling that says that typical messages posted to internet message boards ... are framed as opinions and not as statements of fact.
Duh!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Given the page views at vwvortex, i'm sure many have heard of the lawsuit that the Jim Ellis VW dealership in Atlanta, Georgia brought against George Mantis. The dealership sued Mantis recently, alleging that the comments Mantis posted to a VW web forum were libelous/slanderous.
/.). It started out with a few disgruntled customers, and when the dealership tried to snuff the thread by serving papers to both Mantis and VWvortex, it became a giant stink, with international media coverage and even a grassroots legal defense fund. If you look at the timestamps about 7 pages in, you really get a sense of how fast and across how many vectors information can travel.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend you have a read (although the length of the thread at this point easily rivals some of the longest ever seen even on
FYI: The dealership seems to be backtracking now, and supposedly will be in settlement talks this Friday. Hopefully this translates into an even stronger position for Mantis to deal from.
Disclaimer: The following comments represent opinion only and should NOT be regarded as statements of fact, slander or libel:
Microsoft SUCKS ! Windows SUCKS ! MSN SUCKS ! Internet Explorer SUCKS ! Passport SUCKS ! .NET SUCKS ! [insert name of Microsoft product here] SUCKS !
The following, however, are statements of fact:
Linux ROCKS! FreeBSD ROCKS! NetBSD ROCKS! OpenBSD ROCKS! Darwin ROCKS! Amiga ROCKS! BeOS ROCKS! IceWM ROCKS! vi ROCKS! Opera for Linux ROCKS! Qmail ROCKS! csh ROCKS! [insert name of UN*X program here] ROCKS!
Oh well.
Is it a fact or an opinion that something actually got posted?
There is this whole thing of while the government cannot suppress certain rights (your milage may vary) that companies routinely do this via their employment agreements.
glad to see some progress in the right direction.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Perhaps it's a lack of caffeine, or that I was up waaay to late watching Star Trek, but I'm failing to see the logic of your opinion (It is an opinion. It says so. See! It says IMHO, right at the start.). Why should a religeous organization not be able to retain a copyright?
If I were a clergyman, and I wrote a bible study guide for my congregation, or a book on how to counsel someone in grief, or for that matter, how to keep your stained glass looking it's sparkliest, why should that not be copyrightable?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I believe this is more common than you think. Envision this scenario:
Some guy is sitting there, bored out of his skull. Work sucks or school sucks or maybe he's just feeling a little pissed off at the world. So what does this guy do? He decides to post to slashdot and he really tries to say something he thinks other people will find "interesting" or "funny" or "insightful", etc. After posting it, he sits there, hitting reload on his user page waiting for a reply, or maybe a moderation. He reloads. And Reloads. And Reloads.
But nothing.
The poor sap decides he'll write some replies to himself in the hopes that somebody will notice him. Give him that precious karma boost, or any sort of dialogue. Sound familiar? Sure it does. If it doesn't, you haven't been here long enough. Look deep down inside you. It's in you too.
Depends on your time zone (Earth & Sky has a few details).
Opinion -1
Fact +1
Two intelligent court decisions in one day? I'm going to buy lottery tickets or something.
This is really bad news for William "Wild Bill" Slater XIII, however. Long live Lowtax!
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
And that one was in your fact column, too! Does this mean I can hold you liable for all the time I wasted writing csh scripts? I wonder what kind of hourly damages I can collect...
Is it me, or were Californian courts (both federal and state, IIRC) showing an unusual amount of sanity today? First the EULA ruling mentioned below, then this... Someone's been falling behind on their bribes... Err... Donations, it seems.
So now it's ok to do this?:
Sun: Overpriced and people who use them are usually arrogant
SGI: Utter crap
IBM: Website sucks and their support is horrible
Apple: Dead in the water. Buying anything Apple is a complete waste of money.
AOL: ISP for retards
Cisco: Total garbage hardware. Who would ever use something from Cisco?
Intel: Falling behind the times with overpriced underpowered, CPUs.
The preceding is my opnion and not representative of fact.
All I can say is you are the man. I guess other people must do that too. I sit there waiting for my obviously insightful comments to get moderated up to +5 Insightful but my user page never changes usually.. I might get a reply from someone but it never goes anywhere. :-(
I think it's not to much trouble to expect the editors to expand the CCTLD in stories to the actual name of the country (...) involved ?
Seriously, and I'm not from CA _or_ CA.
My favorite amongst these is the ZixIt/Visa lawsuit. The CEO of ZixIt said in a con call that 'shareholders should sell if there are no ZixCharge partners by the end of the year'. So the end of the year comes and no partners, coincidentally ZixIt filled a suit against Visa claiming that anonymous posts on the Yahoo message board by a Visa employee had somehow interferred with the business relationships of the company.
The lawsuit is still in progress, only Visa are now subpoenaing the records of the discussion board from Yahoo. The only explanation for this would be if they suspected that ZixIt employees were posting to the board. ZixIt is no longer revenueless, they sold 9,500 seats at something like $25 a seat last quarter, the ZixCharge product has never launched, although this may in part be due to the ZixIt payment site having been hacked a few months back. Kinda hard to promote a secure payments scheme after that eh?
During the arguments over the Paula Jones lawsuit the one that I thought was least good was that the President should not have to spend time answering vexatious lawsuits. While I think that the lawsuit was cooked up by the GOP from start to finis, I don't buy that argument. The Congress and President should have to face the same risks of bogus lawsuits as the rest of us, that might encourage them to do something about the situation.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
So what they are saying is that I shouldn't be citing slashdot for any of my papers?
---- Yay! I have a sig!
I hope they will allow you to see pages without user rankings. Google's current method of ranking by how much outside sites linked to a page is one of the best ways to keep results honest. Anything where a site owner can manipulate those results will inevitably skew those results.
You can still find evidence of the posts/sites in question!
The ComputerXpress Raging Bull forum was the message board used by the bulk of the defendants in this case. Undestone and Ogravity, still active, were defendants. Most of the offending posts have been removed, but there are some interesting posts by the defendants in the first 100 messages. Ogravity also set up a site about ComputerXpress and penny stock scams here. This site was mentioned in the appelate court opinion [pdf].
Keep in mind that ComputerXpress changed its name from Stop-n-Sock [nasd-otc:USAV], and used the domain CostPlusFive.com.
my blog
considering that someone's selling one used. =D
(seriously, I can't tell from either the picture or the text... on the one han, it appears to have a gas-burning motor attached which would be a bit overkill for the first application, but on the other, the page warns that the packaging may reveal the contents and they can't guarantee it remaining unknown...)
What if I were to say here that, IMHO, I should be a fact that Cowboy Neal is a porno fag?
Is that an opinion or a statement?
Of course other people do that too. I'd bet that at least 50% of the posts that say stuff like "mod this up!" or are overly enthusiastic about a parent post are done by the same person using this technique. I'm not talking about the compulsive lamer trolls either.
Then you run across the people using multiple accounts (all with high karma) who will fuck with your head. Different posters, same guy. We're the real trolls on slashdot, because we don't just spout out bullshit like "hot grits poured in my goat hole, Natalie!" No, we actually manipulate the minds of many (MANY!) people. I would give you some examples from my own mindfucking sprees, but then I would reveal myselves and it'd spoil all the fun.
However, most of the slashdot illuminati are at least smart enough to preview their posts and never *never* post a fuckup like the guy above.
well, good, now I can insult Dr. Bob
Dr. Bob is a motherfucking dick sucking bitch fucking faggot from hell and he likes to suck lots of hard dick. He has 26 boyfriends that all give blowjobs to him every single day. He's a fuckface and should be killed. I'm gonna kill his fucking ass and rip his balls off and shove them so far down his throat his feet explode. He deserves all this cuz he rapes monkeys and eats his mom's pussy every night. He has no friends and every one hates him. He's a sadass motherfucker fag from hell and likes to eat monkey ass. Fuck him!!!!!!
And now I don't even have to put IMO in front of it!! Thank god!!!
Judges like this, we need. More of them!
I thought that if you write something negative, but it is in fact true, i.e., a fact, that it's not libel by definition.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
For someone who babbles so much, you should keep better watch on your "to"s, "too"s, "two"s, and "toe"s...
Using a boiler room strategy is not only patently wrong, but it is amazing that he didn't spend time in prison for it. Federal ass-pounding prison. I did not check, but I thought that boiling stocks was as bad as extortion and imbezzelment. Especially on that high amount of money.
Did someone say that he was a minor?
Some people see that as amazing that he got away with it... I see all of the people that he screwed their retirement funds out of.
That judge must have been fucking high when he made that decision. I bet he rolled up a nice big spliff and toked away on it.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
</tongue in cheek>
YAAC - (Yet Another Anonymous Coward)
that sees the irony in the fact that court decisions are called opinions and not facts? If I am, it must be the caffeine...
You mean the courts have ruled in favor of some individual over a corporation? Wow! Can we request these judges to preside over some DMCA cases?
http://www.aquaria.net/lawsuit.html contains details about a current issue where the company "Pets Warehouse" has a $15,000,000 lawsuit filed against a dozen or so members of the "Aquatic Plants Digest" mailing list. In my opinion, the defendants were complaining in a manner typical of the complaints about various business one would see in message forums across the internet (bad service, dont shop here, blah blah blah). This lawsuit is real and the defendants have all been served. This lawsuit seems to be even more frivolous than the one mentioned in the newsbyte article.
maru
Um. First, it's pretty easy to sue someone. Anyone watch West Wing last night? It was an old rerun where they talk about lots of lawsuits against the President, from crackpots who want the government to stop letting aliens broadcast through their fillings, to someone blaming the President for the fact their spouse didn't wear a seatbelt and died in a car accident. Lunatic lawsuits are not uncommon. They might lose, or you might give in because hiring a lawyer to defend you is expensive. But in this case, Adam wasn't actually sued.
Second, Adam wrote about a "fictional kid" who masturbates to much and had the personally identifiable information as a real person, who presumably doesn't do what he described the "fictional kid" doing. In other words, truth wouldn't be a defense, because Adam wasn't telling the truth.
Now let's pretend for a moment that the "fictional kid" with a real kid's AIM name really is a compulsive masturbator. Then his story wouldn't be libel, but he still might get sued.
Invasion of privacy, and in particular "public disclosure of private facts" is against the law in most states in the US. The law varies from state to state, but the tort "invasion of privacy" in most places is something like:
I think in most cases, the publication of a claim that a person is a compulsive masturbator would meet the "highly offensive to a reasonable person" standard.
Truth is a complete defense against libel. But that has nothing to do, as far as I can tell, with Adam's situation. I could be wrong - state law on this varies. But that's how I see it.
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
I propose replacing all courts with a big ceremonial Tossing of the Coin. Bring a case before the courts, hand over a big cheque ($100,000 for Supremes, less for smaller courts), the Judge orders who shall be heads and who shall be tails, and the court-appointed Coin Flipper performs the toss. "Heads! The case is decided in the affirmative!"
Doomed.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Well, How far and wide I (or rather, my religious organization) would want things to go is irrelevant. If I would want to allow people to copy the work, I would grant permission to copy. What I fail to understand is why my fictitious organization should not have the right to say who can and cannot copy the documents it produced, just because it is a religious one. (Fair use quotation notwithstanding).
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I'd like to see the legal definition of a "message board" before being too impressed by a ruling like this.
You should explicitly say either "California" or "Canada", not just CA... even though more people live in the former...