What a frivolous, ridiculous issue.

... I say to Cohen, kick that blogger's ass!

Where did the blogger get those photos? Did Cohen really post them on her MySpace page? If she did, then, well, she kind of left herself open to be called a skank. And I doubt she has a case since probably 90% of Americans would define "skank" as "someone who would post MySpace photos of herself simulating doggy-style sex with a guy in his underpants in a nasty looking apartment." Seriously, that is the exact dictionary definition of the word, and it's not reasonable to expect people not to say so.

But if the photos weren't posted by her, I imagine that she probably knows the person who made the page. It would be easier, quicker, and less public to go and key the car of her ex-boyfriend or whoever and leave the courts out of it.

Is that just a hyperbolic opinion, or a clinical diagnosis which might legally be interpreted as defamatory?

Maybe you should have stuck with "douchebag." Whoever the blogger is, male or female, it's probably a demonstrable fact that they aren't a package of Summer's Eve.

is 16 and a busgirl at a popular breakfast place. She served coffee to a couple of girls/women who called her a skank and giggled. There's really nothing she could do, and she still had to bus their table even though they were mean to her. You have to live in the world with mean people. People can call you whatever they want, you don't have to answer. I think the person doing the name-calling is a skank, but what can you do? Life is just too short for this kind of thing.

>Sociopath...Is that just a hyperbolic opinion, or a clinical diagnosis which might legally be interpreted as defamatory?

Unlike Liskula, "Anonymous" can scarce claim to be defamed.

A sociopath usually appears normal, but upon closer inspection shows a lack of empathy and other normal human emotions...this dude seems more like a psychopath.

However, that in and of itself is not a crime.

Oh yeah? Well, Darth Vader is Luke's father!

Zing!

Lest we only support the first amendment when it works in our faovr.

or someone desperate for publicity would thus protest being dubbed a skank whore.

OTOH, being a famous skank whore often leads to your own immensely popular and monetarily rewarding TV show.

No, a blogger calling a public figure a skank is not the most provoking thing about this story. Without the lawsuit, there would not even be a story. If she won, a hell of a lot of websites would have to worry. Jezebel's GOOP Scoop regularly smacks down Gwyneth Paltrow, but Broadsheet thought that was pretty funny just a couple of weeks ago. Do we really have to wait until Jan. 20 to start taking the first amendment seriously again?

"Is it, or is it not, totally verified that you were all, like, 'do me' to that bronson dude that one time with your ho-bag veronicas?"

"Oh - my - god, no way!"

"No further questions, your honor."

It would be nice is Ms. Clark-Flory would actually understand the legal issues.

This is a two part question: Can Ms. Cohen get discovery, i.e., can she get a court to order MySpace to disclose the name and other contact information of the blogger. The second question is can she win the subsequent case. However, Ms. Clark-Flory has managed to put the cart before the horse, addressing whether she could win the case, before addressing whether she has enough of a case to get the discovery she seeks from MySpace.

To get discovery she needs to show that she has at least a prima facie case that she has been defamed and that the statements are injurious to her reputation. It seems to me that to say of someone that they are: "psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank" is without doubt, if not true, and there is not evidence that it is true, quite defamatory. Does anyone not think that say calling Ms. Clark-Flory a whore would be bad for her reputation; calling her a liar would help her career; suggesting she is psychotic would be good for her. I really cannot see how she can have any problem showing that the statements are prima facie defamatory. By the way, in the same vein, I really do not think that even the pretty supine US courts will accept a public figure defense when statements are so clearly intentionally malicious.

Now Ms. Clark-Flory wanders into the weeds of the defense of "truth" to an alleged libel. She does not explain how, presumably MySpace would get the opportunity to present this defense prior to Ms. Cohen getting the discovery she seeks. Moreover, how would they present the defense without addressing the issue of who the Blogger is and how he/she knows what they assert to be true.

I would add that Ms. Cohen's lawyers seem to be a bit 'canny' here -- they could try to sue MySpace and even have some chance of success, but since they are not now suing MySpace -- actually it is not clear to me what standing if any MySpace would have to put up the defense of "truth."

Who cares if someone anonymous calls you a skank ho?

Um, things like "accidently dropping a tray of half-full coffee cups" on the bitches do happen, you know.

Ummm irony much ?

the submission of an amicus curiae brief from Perez Hilton on behalf of Google. Should make for some damn fine reading.

I don't want to be mean, because it's so early in the morning and I'm sure you're a perfectly pleasant person, but honestly, your post analyzing the legal technicalities of this case that were overlooked by TCF made an already silly story even more ridiculous.

In America, any idiot with $150 to burn can file a lawsuit, and most of them are frivolous and stupid wastes of time. Unlike Britain, the US affords much greater free speech latitude in the realm of offensive speech and personal opinion, and has adopted more strictly defined and limited definitions of slander and libel. Also unlike Britain, in the US in any defamation lawsuit, the burden falls to the plaintiff to prove that the statements were intended to be statements of factual certitude and not opinion or satire, that they were made with malicious intent in order to harm the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff did indeed suffer demonstrable harm. It's a strict standard which is why few defamation lawsuits actually succeed. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that the lawsuit under discussion on this thread will ever result in a jury finding for the plaintiff, if it were even so lucky as to make it to a civil trial in the first place. If it isn't tossed out of court with the same alacrity as was the Virginia judge's multi-million dollar lawsuit over the Korean laundromat losing a pair of his slacks, then I'll be shocked and, frankly, appalled.