View Single Post
Old 03-22-2006, 02:53 AM   #1 (permalink)
Ishmal
Wicked Clown
 
Ishmal's Avatar
 
Location: House Of Horrors
Tucker Max is being sued... (again)

Web liability under question

Lawsuit asks: Does ‘annoyance’ law apply to Internet message boards?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metro
CENTER CITY — A lawsuit from local socialite and PR man Anthony DiMeo III against New York Internet celebrity Tucker Max could challenge a new law that makes it illegal to annoy someone anonymously using a computer.

DiMeo’s suit alleges that comments made on TuckerMax.com message boards are libelous and violate new rules placed into the federal Communications Act as part of the Violence Against Women Act and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act.

The lawsuit says comments made on TuckerMax.com about DiMeo are libelous against new wording in the law, which makes it a crime to “annoy, abuse, threaten or harass” someone anonymously on the Internet. Posters have been making fun of DiMeo on Max’s Web site for a few years and began belittling him even more after a failed New Years’ Eve party organized by DiMeo’s Renamity PR firm.


Message boards included?

Ronald Collins, a scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center, said that the new wording in the anti-stalking law was meant to use rules against harassing telephone calls with Internet technologies such as e-mail, not message boards, which are seen as public conversations.

“This strikes me as a real stretch,” Collins said of the suit.

One of the lawmakers that helped craft the act, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., said that it doesn’t pertain to message boards.

“I don’t think it has to say yes to message boards,” said DiMeo’s attorney, Matthew B. Weisberg. “It talks about any device. ... It sounds counterintuitive that Congress would pass a law prohibiting the type of behavior and then confine that prohibition to minimal areas.”


Law not settled

Max, a Duke law school grad who is representing himself, said he’s confident comments on his site aren’t libelous toward DiMeo. But, he said, the law over whether message boards are included in the new rules is unsettled.

“[DiMeo’s] trying to ...bully someone into limiting their own speech or trying to get the government to get something he can’t get on his own,” Max said. “He wants it so that no one can say anything mean about him or things people don’t like. That’s just not the way the world works.”


Annoying, but illegal?

• A new law signed by the president earlier this year makes it a crime to anonymously “annoy, abuse, threaten or harass” someone on the Internet.

• According to First Amendment scholar Ronald Collins, the law is worrisome because of its vague and overly broad interpretation of “annoy.”

• “It does tend to chill and even bar clearly protected speech,” he said.

• One Nevada company has gone to court to challenge the constitutionality of barring annoying speech.

this decision could effect some ppl around here...

link to article

link to Tuckers message board discussions


more interesting info

link to Tuckers take on it
__________________
"Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular."
Ishmal is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360