At the end week, a tale caught my eye, about a website being <a href=”http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100826/NEWS010704/308260041/Bengals-cheerleader-wins-libel-suit” target=”_blank”>ordered to pay $11 million</a> for failing to respond to a lawsuit claiming libel. The tale caught my attention for a hardly any reasons: first, I’m always interested in libel lawsuits involving blogs and second… the designation of the site that was sued was TheDirt.com, which… er… seemed close enough to Techdirt.com that I had to pause for a second and constitute certain it wasn’t us. Anyway, after all that, it didn’t seem like the ruling was fascinating enough for a advertise… until some other details came outside.
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The lawsuit itself came from a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader/high college English teacher named Sarah Jones, who was upset that the site in inquiry apparently posted a picture of her and reported that she had an affair with a player and had contracted two venereal diseases. Assuming there’s no truth to the rumors, it sounded like a straightforward libel condition — though from all the reporting, it’s not clear if the site owners themselves wrote the content, or if it was written by a user — in which condition the site might have Section 230 protections (potentially depending on how involved they were in encouraging such content).
<br /><br />
So why is the condition suddenly fascinating? Well, perhaps since it immediately appears that Ms. Jones’ lawyers <a href=”http://www.politico.com/news/tales/0810/41505.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter” target=”_blank”>sued the incorrect corporation</a>. Oops. The lawsuit was filed against Los Angeles-based Dirty Earth Entertainment Recordings, which runs the website TheDirt.com. Difficulty is that the site that contained the content in inquiry was TheDirt<b>y</b>.com, and that’s run by a Scottsdale-based corporation called Dirty Earth LLC who had no indication that there was a lawsuit going on at all. Oops indeed. At least no one sued us.
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Amusingly, the folks at TheDirt.com are amusingly asking if <a href=”http://www.thedirt.com/2010/08/11-million-dollar-judgement-vs-thedirt-com-for-stds/” target=”_blank”>they should sue for libel</a> fair back, considering all the press coverage claiming (falsely) that they had libeled Ms. Jones. Oh, and as for TheDirty.com, it’s <a href=”http://thedirty.com/2010/08/nik-has-the-ap-apologized-to-you-yet/” target=”_blank”>also asking the AP for an apology</a> for <a href=”http://www.kentucky.com/2010/08/27/1408747/northern-ky-teacher-wins-11-million.html” target=”_blank”>falsely reporting</a> that it had lost the lawsuit when it hadn’t much been served. Quite a dirty mess. Separately, I have to imagine that Jones’ lawyer, Eric Deters, immediately regrets his statement to the AP:
<blockquote><i>
“If they would have just taken it down, this all would have been over,” Deters said. “They just kind of mocked the whole court system.”
</i></blockquote>
Might have helped if you sued the fair corporation.<br /><br /><a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100831/18025610848.shtml”>Permalink</a> | <a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100831/18025610848.shtml#comments”>Comments</a> | <a href=”http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20100831/18025610848&op=sharethis”>Email This Tale</a><br />
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