CA Court: Message Boards Are Opinions, Not Facts 297
Posted
by
chrisd
from the special-rights-for-special-people dept.
from the special-rights-for-special-people dept.
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."
hehe... (Score:3, Insightful)
seriously, good work there in CA...
Dangerous article -- chaning the line (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Is this a good thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:With a little luck... (Score:2, Insightful)
Although this may be a bit farfetched, suppose that as a direct result of my propaganda, Ford sees a reductions in the sale of cars.
IMHO, Ford has every right in the world to sue me for loss of business. Since I make an unsubstantiated claim about a firm that has a material impact upon its profitability, surely I am liable for damages.
Re:New disclaimer: (Score:5, Insightful)
Changing the line to something like
"All comments are the opinions of the owner and not the property of Slashdot"
might just save you a world of grief down the line.
Religeous Copyright? (Score:2, Insightful)
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?