| Bally Total Fitness v. Faber Posted June 24th, 2008 by Arthur Bright LawsuitDate: 02/23/1998 In February 1998, Bally Total Fitness sued Andrew Faber, a former Bally customer who created a website entitled BallySucks (now defunct), which was dedicated to collecting complaints about Bally's health club business and included modified versions of Bally's trademarks with the word "sucks" across them. The complaint alleged trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition. Bally moved for a temporary restraining order against Faber to force him to take down the website, but the court denied Bally's motion in April 1998. In October 1998, Bally moved for summary judgment on its claims. The court again rejected the motion, and instead ordered Faber to bring a motion for summary judgment. Faber so moved, and the court granted the motion in December 1998. The court found that Faber's "Bally sucks" site promoted separate, distinct "goods" from Bally's services and would not confuse reasonable consumers. Further, the court said that even if the two "goods" had been related, the trademark infringement balancing test from AMF Inc. v. Sleekcraft Boats, 599 F.2d 341, 348-49 (9th Cir. 1979) weighed heavily in favor of Faber. Following the grant of summary judgment, Bally appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, on June 13, 2000, the appeal was dismissed by stipulation of the parties. United States District Court for the Central District of California Legal Counsel for Sending/Suing Party: A. Sidney Katz, Eric D. Cohen, Eric E. Cohen, Julie A. Katz (Welsh & Katz); David Huebner (Coudert Brothers); Glenn W. Trost (White and Case LLP) Legal Counsel for Receiving/Defending Party: Gary P. Simonian (Keats McFarland and Wilson); Kirk N. Sullivan, Jody Damon Angel (Moore Winter Skebba & McLennan) |
| Schuster v. The Fresno Bee by David Ardia Threat type: Subpoena Date: 01/23/2008 Party Issuing Threat: Larissa Schuster Party Receiving Threat: The Fresno Bee Status:Concluded Disposition:Dismissed A defense attorney for Larissa Schuster, who was convicted of murder, subpoenaed The Fresno Bee seeking the Internet protocol addresses and dates of access for all users of the paper's website and blog during the period surrounding the time of his client's trial to determine whether jurors violated a judge's order barring them from reading online news stories about the case before they reached a verdict. The subpoena, which was sent to the "Custodian of Records" at The Fresno Bee, sought IP addresses and dates of access for all users of www.fresnobee.com, the paper's main website, www.fresnobeehive.com, the paper's blog, and "any other internet site associated with The Fresno Bee." Betsy Lumbye, executive editor and senior vice president of The Fresno Bee, stated that the newspaper would not voluntarily turn over the IP address data of its users. The idea that we'd violate readers' privacy by digging up that kind of information and disclosing it is preposterous," she said. "We would fight it tooth and nail and I'm confident we'd prevail. On February 4, 2008, a Fresno County judge quashed the subpoena, concluding that Schuster's lawyer had not provided compelling reasons to force The Bee to turn over the information and characterizing the subpoena as "a fishing expedition." Court Type:State Location of Filing/Threat: California Court Name: Superior Court of California, County of Fresno Case Number:F03904715-0 Legal Counsel for Sending/Suing Party: Roger T. Nuttall (Nuttall & Coleman) CaliforniaWeb Sites Involved: http://www.fresnobee.com http://www.fresnobeehive.com |
| "Fair" Housing Lawsuit Has Been Dismissed by the US District Court in Chicago, as of November 14, 2006. We're pleased the Court agreed that online service providers like craigslist should not be held liable as "publishers" of content submitted by their users, and view this outcome as a win for the general public's ability to self- publish content (such as free classified ads) on the internet. Just as importantly, this ruling is a victory for fair housing in the city of Chicago, since this misguided suit sought to force craigslist to regress to ineffective and intrusive "horse and buggy" technologies, which would have resulted in a big step backward for fair housing from the industry-leading standard that craigslist users have set through fair housing education and community self- moderation. Summary: A group of lawyers is suing craigslist over a handful of allegedly discriminatory housing ads posted by our users, ignoring the fact that craigslist is not a publisher, but rather a community- moderated commons run by and for its users, who self-publish and manage their own ads and use a flagging system to police the site. These lawyers demand that we impose ill-conceived, mistake- prone, and potentially illegal controls on the craigslist community, which if adopted would actually reduce fair housing opportunity, while eroding important free speech and privacy rights. In reality, the craigslist community already excels at ensuring equal opportunity housing, and continues to improve in this regard, earning praise from fair housing groups. This lawsuit will likely be dismissed as groundless, but more importantly the craigslist community will be recognized for its exemplary record in promoting fair housing for all, while fully respecting each person's constitutional right to free speech and free association. The Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is suing craigslist for 100 allegedly discriminatory ads posted by our Chicago users in a 6 month period, out of 200,000 housing ads submitted to chicago.craigslist.org in that timeframe. While craigslist takes fair housing issues very seriously, and we want to do everything we can to assist our users in promoting fair housing for everyone, the 100 ads cited were a little surprising. Some were roommate ads involving constitutionally protected speech and the right to free association, such as "prefer christian roommate", or were ads containing incidental and harmless remarks such as "near St Gertrude's church," and "Buddhist temple nearby.".. Although in all likelihood this suit will be dismissed on the grounds that internet sites can not legally be held liable for content posted by users, craigslist has no need to hide behind this well- established immunity...Discriminatory postings are exceedingly uncommon, and those few that do reach the site are typically removed quickly by our users through the flagging system that accompanies each ad... Though possibly well-intentioned, this lawsuit ignores the essential nature of craigslist, demanding that we cease treating our users with trust and respect, and instead impose inappropriate, mistake-prone, and generally counter- productive centralized controls (such as manual review by our staff of the nearly 2 million free housing ads of unlimited length posted each month, a volume of ads greater than that received by all US newspapers combined), controls which would actually be less effective in catching discriminatory ads than what we have in place currently... Overreaching further, the suit demands that craigslist proactively volunteer personal information about posters who post a discriminatory preference (e.g. "church next door") to regulatory authorities for prosecution, without subpoena or warrant -- clearly a violation of privacy rights, this demand may actually run counter to federal law governing the handling of user information... Jim Buckmaster CEO, craigslist http://www.craigslist.org/about/fair. housing.html |
| Parent to Parent Message Boards GreatSchools, Inc. says I'm not allowed to use their content to discuss on the Internet the possibility that school district attorneys use parent message boards to undermine parents suing schools |
| Free Speech |
In March 2000, AnswerThink, a business and technology consulting firm, fired Gregory P. Hackett for allegedly criticizing the company on a Yahoo! forum and sued him for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and loyalty, and defamation in Florida federal court. AnswerThink fired and sued Hackett after subpoenaing Yahoo! and learning Hackett's identity during a related lawsuit, AnswerThink Consulting Group v. Doe. In that lawsuit, AnswerThink sued Hackett and several others as John Does for defamation. Hackett and AnswerThink settled both cases in July 2000. In a related matter, Hackett sued Yahoo! in California federal court in May 2000 for violating his privacy when it complied with AnswerThink's subpoena. Hackett and Yahoo! settled in August 2000. |
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| Man Gets Prison for Insulting Monarchy By AMBIKA AHUJA AP Jan. 19, 2009 BANGKOK, Thailand An Australian writer was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for insulting Thailand's royal family in his novel, a rare conviction of a foreigner amid a crackdown on people and Web sites deemed critical of the monarchy. Bangkok's Criminal Court sentenced Harry Nicolaides to six years behind bars but reduced the term because he had entered a guilty plea, the judge said. Australian writer Harry Nicolaides looks out from a cell in court Monday in Bangkok, Thailand. He was sentenced to three years in prison for insulting Thailand's royal family in his 2005 novel "Verisimilitude," which sold seven copies. The offending passage was just a few sentences long and referred to the marital relations of a fictional prince. (Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker) Nicolaides, a 41-year-old from Melbourne, was charged with insulting Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the crown prince in his 2005 book "Verisimilitude," a piece of fiction that only sold seven copies. "This can't be real. It feels like a bad dream," a tearful Nicolaides told reporters earlier Monday. A passage in the book that discussed the personal life of a fictional prince "suggested that there was abuse of royal power," the presiding judge told the court. |
| Bangkok, Thailand |
| Alabama, USA |
| New York Times: Rove Named in Alabama Controversy |
| CBS 60 Minutes Feb. 24, 2008 Report on Don Siegelman case "Is Don Siegelman in prison because he’s a criminal or because he belonged to the wrong political party in Alabama? Siegelman is the former governor of Alabama, and he was the most successful Democrat in that Republican state. But while he was governor, the U. S. Justice Department launched multiple investigations that went on year after year until, finally, a jury convicted Siegelman of bribery..." |
| Who is worse, Thailand's King Adulyadej or America's President Bush? |
| Who wanted Siegelman out of the way? Bill Canary, Republican kingmaker, friend and confidant of Karl Rove, campaign advisor to William Pryor and Bob Riley, and, not coincidentally, husband of U.S. Attorney, Leura Canary U.S. Attorney Alice Martin |
| "Fair" Housing Lawsuit Has Been Dismissed |