In January 2008, literary agent Barbara Bauer and her company Barbara Bauer Literary Agency, Inc. filed a lawsuit in New Jersey State court against twenty-two defendants, including the Wikimedia Foundation. The complaint includes claims for defamation, tortious interference with prospective business advantage, and conspiracy. According to court documents, the dispute revolves around statements made on a large number of websites and blogs describing Bauer as being among the "20 Worst Literary Agents" and claiming that she has "no . . . significant track record of sales to commercial (advance paying) publishers." The complaint also alleges that various defendants posted altered photographs of Bauer on the Internet and created YouTube videos, including "Crouching Snark, Hidden Draggon" and "Miss Snark's Happy Hooker Crapstravaganza," that allegedly defamed and belittle her.

With regard to Wikimedia, the complaint alleges that Wikipedia published false statements indicating that Bauer was "The Dumbest of the Twenty Worst" literary agents and that she has "no documented sales at all." It further alleges that Bauer informed Wikimedia about the allegedly false statements, and that the foundation "has refused to remove the statements from Wikipedia." Finally, it alleges that Wikimedia conspired with the other defendants to defame and interfere with her prospective economic advantage, without providing any details.

On May 1, 2008, Wikimedia moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), the federal law that shields providers and users of "interactive computer service[s]" from liability for defamation and other torts for publishing the statements of third parties, bars Bauer's claims as a matter of law. Wikimedia's memorandum in support of its motion also argued that, even if CDA 230 did not bar Bauer's claim, the underlying statements are protected opinion under the New Jersey Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

On May 20, 2008, WritersNewsWeekly.com wrote that the court will hear Wikimedia's motion to be dismissed from the lawsuit on June 6, 2008.

Update:

7/1/08 - Court dismissed the case against Wikimedia Foundation, ruling that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred liability for publishing the statements of others. The court left open the possibility that Bauer could amend her complaint to state a claim against Wikimedia.

Eclipse Aviation, a manufacturer of "affordable" jets, recently sent a subpoena to Google seeking to uncover the identities of 28 users who posted on the blog Eclipse Aviation Critic NG, which Google hosts on its Blogger service.

The subpoena, which includes a colorful list of pseudonyms such as "Turn-and-Burn," "Bill E. Goat," and "Niner Zulu," does not state why the information is necessary. AINonline, an aviation news site, reports:

According to Eclipse president and CEO Vern Raburn, the Albuquerque, N.M. aircraft manufacturer has been irreparably damaged by the “lies” posted by anonymous visitors on the blog, and he seeks to unmask them via the subpoena. But the blog hasn’t been far off the mark on several occasions, suggesting that some of the anonymous posters might be Eclipse employees who could be breaking a non-disclosure agreement signed when they were hired.

According to news reports and comments on Eclipse Aviation Critic NG, the website operator, Shane Price, and the impacted users plan to file a motion to quash in Santa Clara Superior Court where the subpoena was filed.

Update:

May 8, 2008 - "John Doe" filed a motion to quash the subpoena

August 2008 - After a change in company management, Eclipse withdrew the lawsuit.

Anonymous users posted negative comments about Matrixx Initiatives on the Yahoo! Finance and Silicon Investor message boards. Matrixx filed a lawsuit against the anonymous "John Doe" posters in an Arizona court alleging defamation and other claims. Matrixx received information from Yahoo! that some of the postings could be traced to computers owned by Barbary Coast Capital Management, LLC, a San Francisco hedge fund. Matrixx got permission from the Arizona court to take a deposition in California of Stephen Worthington, a manager at Barbary Coast. During the deposition, counsel for Matrixx asked Worthington about the identity of the anonymous posters, and he refused to reveal their identity or to say whether he was one of them. Matrixx obtained an order from the Santa Clara Superior Court in California requiring Worthington to answer the questions.

Barbary Coast and Worthington appealed the trial court's decision, claiming that it violated the posters' First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The appellate court affirmed the decision of the trial court, holding that Barbary Coast and Worthington lacked the standing to assert the First Amendment rights of the anonymous posters.

Nemet Chevrolet and its owner Tom Nemet filed a lawsuit against ConsumerAffairs.com, a consumer ratings site run by former reporter James Hood, for publishing user complaints against his company. Nemet claims the postings published on the site constitute defamation, tortious interference with business expectations and violations of the Lanham Act.

According to Nemet's complaint, visitors to the website fill out an online complaint form, which the editors check for defamatory content before publishing. One disputed user complaint alleges that the company had reneged on a promise made by one of its salespersons to a customer. Another customer posting quoted in the complaint asserts that the company sold the car to her at an inflated price. Nemet maintains that these and other statements are defamatory. 

Nemet's complaint also alleges that the website's name "Consumer Affairs" is misleading and deceptive in violation of the Lanham Act, because it misleads members of the public into believing that it is a government body.

Update:

6/18/2008 - The district court granted ConsumerAffair's motion to dismiss or strike the complaint.

7/15/2008 - The district court granted Nemet Chevrolet's motion for leave to file an amended complaint.

08/04/2008 - ConsumerAffairs filed a motion to dismiss or strike the amended complaint.

9/11/2008 - The district court granted ConsumerAffair's motion to dismiss or stike the amended complaint.

9/25/2008 - Nemet Chevrolet filed a notice of appeal.

12/29/2009 - The Fourth Circuit affirmed the lower court's dismissal of the case.

In February 2008, the Frisco Fairways Homeowners Association filed a defamation suit against three homeowners after they posted critical comments about the association on an online community forum. According to the Dallas News, the lawsuit claims that Mr. Snell, Mr. Doumani, and Mr. Macari falsely stated or implied that the association's board had lied to members, engaged in questionable financial dealings, and acted unethically. The association claims that the homeowners also posted private information about members. The dispute apparently arose after the association required residents to cover up air conditioning units, pool equipment, and other items with bushes. News reports indicate that the case is expected to go to trial in April 2008.

Update:

5/1/2008 - Parties settled the case.  As part of the settlement, the association agreed to post the settlement agreement on its website for no less than 30 days.

On April 7, 2008, the Legislative Counsel Committee of the State of Oregon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Justia, a free online resource for judicial decisions and statutes, claiming that Justia's posting of the Oregon Revised Statutes violates its copyright. The Committee is not claiming copyright in the text of the law itself. Instead, the Committee claims copyright in

the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables, index and annotations and such other incidents as are the work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.

Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org, another online source of free caselaw and statutes, has gotten involved in the dispute. Although the Committee did not send Malamud a cease-and-desist letter, he wrote to the Committee on April 13, indicating that Justia had shared its letter with him and notifying it that he had disabled the public's access to the Oregon Revised Statutes on his site. He followed up on April 15, notifying the Committee of various technical deficiencies in the version of the statutes publicly available on the Legislative Assembly's website.

In late April, Malamud, Tim Stanley from Justia, and their attorney Karl Olson participated in a conference call with representatives of the Committe, during which they discussed the possibility of a mutually acceptable licensing solution. At this time, the Committee proposed a "public license" to Justia and Public.Resource.Org and rescinded its initial demand that Justia remove postings of the Oregon Revised Statutes by April 30. However, in subsequent letters, Malamud and Olson (on behalf of both Public.Resource.Org and Justia) rejected the proposed license as "incompatible with how public domain data is distributed" and inconsistent with their understanding of copyright law. In his letter, Olson indicated that his clients intended to post the entirety of the Oregon Revised Statutes online by June 2, 2008. (Note: Justia has not removed its copies of the statutes, so this time frame appears to apply only to Public.Resource.Org.)

On May 16, 2008, Karl Olson sent another letter to the Committee, notifying it that Justia and Public.Resource.Org intended on filing a complaint for declaratory relief on or before June 2, 2008. The letter provided a link to the draft complaint.

On June 19, 2008, the Legislation Council Committee decided in a hearing not to pursue copyright actions regarding the statutes.

On January 29, 2008, Domenic Gatto and Atlantic Express Transportation Corp. filed a special proceeding in New York Supreme Court, Richmond County, seeking permission to file a sealed lawsuit for defamatioin against Jerry Capeci. Capeci, a former organized crime reporter with The Daily News, runs GangLandNews.com, a website devoted to coverage of organized crime. On December 27, 2007, Capeci published an article about Gatto.

In a February 8, 2008 hearing before the court, Gatto's lawyers indicated that Capeci's article made statements linking Gatto to organized crime and republished information from a district attorney's affidavit filed as part of an application for a wiretap warrant. According to Gatto's lawyers, New York law requires affidavits of this kind to be filed under seal (i.e., not open to the public). They argued that the court should bar public access to the court file of Gatto's as-yet-unfiled lawsuit in order to stop the press from repeating the allegations in the (allegedly) improperly leaked affidavit.

The court denied Gatto's request. Gatto appealed, but the appellate division rejected his appeal. It also rejected Capeci's motion requesting that the court sanction Gatto and require him to pay Capeci's attorneys' fees. As of April 11, 2008, Gatto had not filed a complaint or served Capeci.

In December 2007, FranklinCovey Co., the owner of the copyright in the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, filed suit against Lycos and five "John Doe" defendants, alleging copyright infringement. Lycos operates Angelfire, a website that offers free space, as well as a paid subscription system, for Internet users to post blogs, photo galleries, and other information. FranklinCovey claimed that unknown Angelfire users posted a full digital copy of The 7 Habits on the website.

In August 2007, the company had sent Lycos two takedown notices pursuant to Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see related database entry), but Lycos allegedly did not respond byremoving or disabling access to the infringing material. FranklinCovey's complaint sought actual or statutory damages (at its election) and an injunction barring the defendants from posting its work. The parties settled before Lycos filed an answer, and FranklinCovey voluntarily dismissed the action. Lycos has taken down the digital copy of The 7 Habits.

The United States government sought an injunction requiring Robert Schulz and his nonprofit organizations dedicated to "'institutionalizing' citizen vigilance and governmental accountability" to remove information promoting the non-payment of income taxes from the organizations' websites www.givemeliberty.org, www.wethepeoplecongress.org, and www.wethepeoplefoundation.org.

The websites provided information suggesting that the federal income tax is voluntary, that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified, and that citizens should choose not to pay taxes. The websites provided, among other things, a set of materials called a "Tax Termination Package" (offered for free but with a suggested donation) that provided step-by-step instructions on how to avoid paying taxes.

The United States sued Schulz and the organizations, alleging that their behavior breached the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Specifically, the U.S. alleged that defendants made false or fraudulent statements regarding tax benefits in connection with the sale of a plan or arrangement in violation of 26 USC § 6700, and knowingly prepared a document which would result in understatement of another person's tax liability in violation of IRC § 6701. The U.S. relied on the court's power to grant an injunction under IRC § 7408 to restrain behavior that breaches the above provisions.

Defendants claimed that the publication was protected by the First Amendment. They also claimed that the government had failed to show how the publications breached the tests set out in the cited provisions of the IRC.

On August 9, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted the government's motion for summary judgment, accepting that information helping people to evade income tax did not merit First Amendment protection. The court issued an injunction ordering defendants to remove "all tax-fraud scheme promotional materials, false commercial speech concerning the internal revenue laws, and speech likely to incite others imminently to violate the internal revenue laws” from their websites. The judge did not call for the websites to be taken off the Internet.

The injunction also required defendants to reveal the names, e-mail addresses, social security numbers, and other personal information of people who obtained their information packs to the Internal Revenue Service . On the defendants' motion, the court later stayed this part of the injunction pending appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

On February 22, 2008, the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision and ordered defendants to provide the requested information about the individuals who received the tax packets.

Tom Gillam, a Justice of the Peace in Texas, sued blogger and talkshow host Philip Klein for defamation stemming from statements Klein made on his blog, the Southeast Texas Political Review. Gillam also sued Klein Investments Inc., Klein's company, Fox Radio 1340AM, which broadcasts a radio show for Klein, Ronnie Linden, Klein's radio co-host, and Mitch Woods, a local sheriff. Gillam sought damages as well as a temporary restraining order to preserve the original website content and recordings of the radio show co-hosted by Klein.

According to court filings, Gillam based his defamation claim on a purported statement by Klein that he engaged in an inappropriate sexual act with a woman at the Port Arthur courthouse. In a statement released by his attorneys and published by the Port Arthur News, Gillam also claims: “Klein further stated in the same article that an employee walked in on Judge Gillam during the alleged act, became upset and left the courthouse in a manner that caused a glass door to break. This story is patently false, malicious and defamatory.”

On June 10, 2008, Klein announced that the parties had settled the matter amicably. Klein stated that an investigation had cast doubt upon the allegations against Gillam and noted that he now believed Gillam was innocent. The Southeast Texas Record reports that Gillam then dismissed the suit and that no money or other compensation was exchanged.