Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Truth is an absolute defense to charge of defamation, says Christopher Juillet

Citizen Media Law Project has posted the EDF Ventures v. Ressi case, a defamation lawsuit regarding The Funded blog.

It appears that the lawsuit is in vain, since The Funded keeps no information about people who post on the site.





"The best rule for writers to follow is to avoid making posts if they can't back up their claims...Be right and be able to prove it because truth is an absolute defense."


Company files defamation lawsuit against anonymous Web poster
Posted by Tina Reed
The Ann Arbor News
August 21, 2008

After executives at an Ann Arbor venture capital firm discovered an anonymous, negative Internet posting about the company, they weren't just mad: They decided to sue.

In a court filing, EDF Ventures accused "John Doe" of defamation for implying in a comment posted on the Web that the people running the firm were dishonest. The comment was made on a California-based Web site called The Funded, which was created to allow entrepreneurs to rate investors anonymously...

Adeo Ressi, the Web site founder, said last week that he planned to cooperate with the subpoena and provide the records he has. But he said the information will likely be unhelpful because of the measures the site takes to make posters anonymous.

The Web site's policy tells visitors, who must be approved to sign up and comment, that all personal information is discarded after approval.

"It's the best thing that ever happened to The Funded," Ressi said. "This case will prove it is truly anonymous."...

No comments: