I am SO excited about this week’s hotlinks and I’ll tell you why in a second. . . But first, I want to thank you for reading my blog. I really LOVE this defamation stuff. I think about it every day and I put my heart and soul into learning about defamation law so I can help you and my clients. You’re getting for free what I charge some of my clients big bucks to learn. So make sure you read everything on this blog because it’s worth its weight in gold.
Now, without further ado (does anyone actually use that word anymore?) this week’s Hotlinks served up Texas style:
1. The Biggest Verdict In Internet Defamation History! – I’m so pumped about this hotlink because it silences all the naysayers. Lawyers ask me why I got involved in internet defamation law all the time. They tell me me stuff like: "defamation cases are too hard, or, "there’s no damages in defamation cases.
Well . . . what about this case, huh?
A jury in Texas just handed a 12.5 MILLION DOLLAR verdict in favor of Orix Capital Markets, LLC in an internet defamation case!
Do I really need to follow-up on this one? I think it speaks for itself, but I’ll say it anyway. Internet defamation cases are important and valuable, provided, of course, that you have an attorney who knows what he or she is doing. You really do need an internet defamation attorney to handle a case like this.
2. Clemens Strikes Out – Okay. So I couldn’t resist the obvious baseball metaphor here and it really isn’t true that he struck out. What happened here is that a large part of his lawsuit against the trainer that allegedly gave him steroids was dismissed. Apparently, the court didn’t think there was jurisdiction for some of the statement allegedly made by the trainer about Clemens. Also, the court found that some of the statements were privileged because they were part of an ongoing federal investigation.
3. Anonymous on the Internet! Yeah right! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again . . . you’re not anonymous on the Internet and I can back it up with 178 reasons. A court ordered a website to hand over identifying information about 178 people who left comments on the website. A bunch of pro-defamation groups went through the roof when they found out about this decision. They were saying that this violated the First Amendment and they used really scary words like "chill, "ominous," and "dangerous." The reality is that the First Amendment doesn’t protect defamatory speech. It never has. So next time you publish something on the Internet that you wouldn’t otherwise say in real life, you better think twice.
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