Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.


Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Good one from Steven Den Beste--a layman's look at libel law as it relates to discourse on the Internet.
[...] In other words, the current jurisprudence in libel law is designed precisely to prevent people from succeeding in doing what you just attempted to do in your letter, which was to make a veiled threat of lawsuit as a way of attempting to coerce me into voluntarily restricting my use of my First Amendment rights of free expression. But that won't work with me because I understand the applicable law and I know full well that you don't have any case.

So don't bother making any further veiled threats of libel suits. I'm not even slightly impressed. If you feel the need to continue with that line, don't bother me until you've talked to a lawyer and actually filed a suit in court. Then let me know and I'll get a lawyer of my own and we'll see what happens.

But before you talk to an attorney, you might be interested to know that there has never been a successful libel lawsuit where someone online actually sued someone else online for what they said, in a situation similar to ours. There have only been a very small number of attempts, and none of them has ever resulted in a judgment for the plaintiff.[...]
Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?


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