Vision Media Apparently Would Prefer No Public Discussion About Its Lawsuit

from the that's-not-how-this-works dept

Mon, Feb 1st 2010 2:24pm — Mike Masnick

Last week, we wrote about how Vision Media TV was suing 800notes.com over comments made by users on the way Vision Media TV does business -- a business method that has been criticized in the pages of the NY Times among others. Of course, 800notes has a clear Section 230 defense, but Vision Media is trying to get around that. Our post was based on a post by Paul Alan Levy, from Public Citizen, who is helping 800Notes in its defense. He's also now let us know that Vision Media is upset about his own discussion of the lawsuit and that it has asked the court for an injunction barring Levy from posting documents from the case on his blog or discussing them -- despite the fact that the filings he posted were all public.

Vision Media seems to be claiming that just posting these public documents is defamatory, which seems quite odd. Also odd is that Vision Media claims that all this publicity might hurt Hugh Downs most of all. Downs, the former host of 20/20, apparently works with Vision Media and is part of the enticement to companies in trying to get them to pay to be on a Vision Media video program. But, again, if Vision Media has done nothing wrong, then it's hard to see how a discussion of the lawsuit would harm its own reputation, or that of Downs. Yet, using Downs' name in support of an attempt to silence a blog post would seem more likely to harm Downs' reputation than anything that Levy did in his own post.

Filed Under: defamation, public discussion, public documents
Companies: 800notes, vision media tv

6 Comments

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Quick Brown Fox, 1 Feb 2010 @ 2:57pm

So Vision Media wants readers to "see no evil"?
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Russ801, 1 Feb 2010 @ 3:11pm

Downs
As a journalist Downs doesn't have a reputation any more. As a celebrity pitchman, association with questionable companies and products has devalued his name more than any lawsuit could.
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Yakko Warner, 1 Feb 2010 @ 3:36pm

As a great playwright will one day say,
The company doth protest too much, methinks.
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lavi d (profile), 1 Feb 2010 @ 3:55pm

Curses
"People on the internet keep telling each other how sneaky and underhanded we are!

"It makes being sneaky and underhanded (S&U) so much more difficult. If only there were some way to stop people telling each other about us..."
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Feb 2010 @ 5:35pm

Well, it's Boca!
"Representatives of Vision Media Television, a production company based in Boca Raton, Fla..."

Boca Raton - scam (and spam) capitol of the US. At one point, I counted that about 45% of the US spammers called Boca home.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Feb 2010 @ 7:09pm

Defamation laws are never and have never been about protecting those who are wrongly accused of doing something wrong (though I do think defamation laws should exist to some extent), they are and have always been intended to protect big corporations and the rich who are correctly accused of doing something wrong.
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