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Infinium Labs Threatens HardOCP Again
XBox4Evr writes "In a follow up from two weeks ago, Infinium Labs is again threatening the tech website HardOCP with legal action. This in itself, is no big deal, but to actually read the letter from Infinium Labs lawyers will make you wonder if an educated person actually penned the documents. This seems to another huge blow to IL's credibility in the console market in general, now that ex-Xbox manager Kevin Bachus is on board with Infinium Labs."
Under most interpretations of libel law, there are three things that Infinium would need to prove.
The first is that not only did HardOCP publish incorrect information, but they did so willingly. In other words, they had to know at the time the article was factually incorrect. If Infinium provided correct information at the time, then this might not really be in dispute. That said, many of the items in the letter appear to be judgements and opinions.
Second, Infinium would have to prove that HardOCP published incorrect information with malice. This is not easy by a long shot, since you are trying to prove motivation.
Finally, Infinium has to prove that they were damaged by the article in clear monetary terms. This is always one of the hardest things to measure in a libel action.
All that being said, I think it is clear that HardOCP has some valid points in the article but at the same time, has been given corrected information (such as location of offices, etc). If HardOCP truly takes journalism seriously, then a few corrections should be forthcoming. The fact that an expense paid invitation to view the facility was turned down suggests a strong anti-Infinium bias.
This is one of those things where both parties stop the shenanigans and own up to the truth. Each is falling far short of being forthright about the matter.
Momentum.
I do side work updating a few lawyers computer networks around town. Way back in the DOS days, word perfect was the standard. Lawyers tend to have money, so they were the first to adopt computers for their secretaries. And to do word processing on a 386/486 with DOS, you bought word perfect. Well technology has gone forward, but their secretaries still want to use wordperfect because all the other law firms are using it.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2004
At the bottom, you'll see Gabe saying:
Lucky for me I always have Emergency Pants!
However after googling a bit I did find some info, I think.
James Aker seems to be a real lawyer at least.
He seems to do Litigation, Employment law, construction, and personal injury. Not really specilized it seems.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/08/27/hln.game.phanto m/
It's interesting that no matter what you see from these guys, it somehow appears there's just no substance to it, just like their fluffy website, that says they're a leader in the 10 billion dollar gaming industry, and all their online store sells is t-shirts, mugs, teddy bears, and frisbees sporting the Infinium logo, and the link for their stock quotes just features blank spaces where the quotes should be.
Wonder who they managed to sucker VC dollars out of? If they don't see the train wreck coming, they deserve to lose their money.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
IANAL, but have worked with enough of them to at least speculate on your question...
As others have posted, simply threatening a lawsuit is not, per se, illegal. The actual content of one's public communications regarding legal action is open to scrutiny, however. If the language is incendiary enough, the threatened company could make a case for basic libel/slander/defamation. Whether this would hold up in court is debatable--and the offending language would have to be pretty extreme to warrant a successful tort prosecution, IMHO. However, the folks lobbying these "poison pen" letters probably aren't going to be scared too much by a little counter-suit for defamation... (grin)
One aspect I would be interested in hearing a Real Lawyer's perspective on would be if "tortious interference" could be applied to a company like Infinium in this case. I am aware no proceeding has actually been filed--but do the principles guiding this apply in the absence of an action? Just curious.