Tag Archives: defamation

Protecting Reviewers: Why review sites are limited in their defense of reviewers

Timothy B. Lee of Ars Technica writes that review websites like Yelp.com “could do more” to protect their reviewers from bogus DMCA claims made against their reviews.  “For example,” Mr. Lee goes on, “Yelp could have offered to represent [the reviewer], or even filed for a declaratory judgment that [the reviewer's] post was not an …

June 1, 2011 – 1:59 pm | By John William Nelson | Posted in Copyright, Defamation | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Is a data center liable for defamatory or harassing websites? No.

There are three categories of folks who may have control over a website’s content at any given time.  These are (1) the website owner, (2) the web hosting company, and (3) a data center used by the web hosting company.  The first two are directly related to the content’s storage; a website owner creates and …

December 30, 2010 – 11:29 am | By John William Nelson | Posted in Defamation | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Reputation: Libel, slander, and the purpose of defamation laws

Techdirt1 has an interesting article discussing reputation as a scarce commodity in reference to the Cooksource fiasco.  Techdirt is right: reputation is a scarce commodity; difficult to build yet easy to destroy.  Cooksource’s editor found this out the hard way. Companies and professionals learn quickly the importance of their reputation and their name.  I recently …

November 14, 2010 – 12:21 pm | By John William Nelson | Posted in Defamation | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Is there a viable argument that Twitter is more like a coffee house conversation than an online publication?

Jacqui Lipton posted a cross-post at the Madisonian and The Faculty Lounge about Twitter and defamation. The following questions were posed: Is there a viable argument that Twitter is more like a coffee house conversation than an online publication?  If so, should this matter for a defamation analysis?  And, if it does, where does one …

December 1, 2009 – 5:54 pm | By John William Nelson | Posted in Defamation, Torts | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)