Horror Blogger Threatened With Defamation And Copyright Lawsuits After Writing An Open Letter To Horror Magazine
from the now-that's-horrifying dept
It's amazing how some people seem to think that basic criticism is defamatory. We recently wrote about how the editor of a journal that published a review of a legal book is now facing a defamation lawsuit in France, even though the book review was just a typical book review (and only slightly negative). Now, Robert Ring points us to the news of a "horror" blogger who wrote a somewhat critical "open letter" to the horror magazine Gorezone, complaining about the apparent grammar and spelling problems in the magazine combined with what the blogger felt was rather sexist content. Frankly, the open letter isn't even that critical. It's one blogger's opinion with some constructive criticism.In response, however, after the blogger's comments were flooded with angry responses (allegedly a bunch all came from the same IP address, which is connected with Gorezone), Gorezone threatened legal action for both defamation and copyright infringement. Apparently, this would be in the UK, where (as we know all too well) defamation laws are pretty ridiculous. Even so, it's difficult to see how anything in the original post is libelous. As for the copyright infringement, the blogger had used (but has since taken down) an image of a recent cover of Gorezone to prove his point. It's difficult to see how this would be considered infringement as well, as the blog post was clearly commenting on the image, and certainly wasn't competing with Gorezone. Of course, again, this is UK law, but there is the concept of fair use/fair dealing in the UK, and it's difficult to see how this wouldn't be covered.
As the link above suggests, this sounds like a SLAPP situation, where the magazine doesn't like the criticism it's received, and its response is to threaten the blogger to try to bully him into taking down the content. We see this all too often, and it's why the world needs more anti-SLAPP protections and laws.
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Filed Under: blogs, copyright, defamation, horror, reviews
Companies: gorezine
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Small correction
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Re: Small correction
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Geee
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Re: Geee
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"Thanks for the comments Dangerous Jamie but you no what 424,000 readers disagree."
lol now I KNOW what Dangerous Jamie was going on about.
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Re:
TechDirt is yellow page listing of dumb people in no particular order. :)
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and spelling mistake is a contagious disease.
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and spelling mistakes are a contagious disease
fixed
So, apparently, are grammer mistakes. :P
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If you're gonna do the grammar, do it proper! (not a mouse-stake)
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Touched
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That would be spelled "grammar", not "grammer".
"Grammer" is a pet name for ones' grandmother.
Pedantically yours,
Pedantophile
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I can Hardly wait
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Re: I can Hardly wait
IIRC, they tried to blame Ain't It Cool News for the failure of Batman & Robin back in 1997...
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Re: I can Hardly wait
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Re: I can Hardly wait
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We all make mistakes, but...
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You want libelous slander?
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grammer nazis = mpaa / riaa shills thread jacking BEWARE
yup thats you trolls
and yes if i want to mispel and right all funny and wrogn are you old enough to decipher mylanguage yat.
GUESS if it drives you crazy i will now stop fixing all spelling mistakes JUST TO annoy you cause its FUN
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@Hymie
thats the mucky part of it.it has to cause harm to reputtion as a falsehood
SO you'd take a poll and if the majority said it sucked you could be right.
WHICH is why i dont listen to movie critics
i thought avatar actually sucked.
AND i do not like having to buy 3d googles to watch anyhting or buy into technology that does this irritating bull crap
thats an opinion
NOT saying that they used sub standard actors and sub standard sets and the director is a child molester.
OF which a lot is actually false.
SEE the differance
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UK, eh?
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A little late to the party...
Firstly, a moment of context - I'm a regular GoreZone reader, contributor to the forums (fora? if we're being sticklers...) on their site, and consider myself friends to several of the staff after meeting them at last year's filmfest. That said, I am not going to rush unquestioningly to their defence...
Having read both the original blog (plus comments), and the GoreZone management's open response to the blog, it's my understanding that something very odd was happening. DangerousJamie discovered that many of the aggressive, apparently pro-GZ posters were all sending their messages from the same IP address, and concluded that they were all staff for the magazine. The trouble is, that several of the claimed IDs from that IP address were not staffers for the magazine, but regular readers and posters to the GZ forums, whose namesake were seemingly being used by person or persons unknown. Bryn Hammond, the editor-in-chief of GZ magazine, has stated categorically that these posts did NOT come from their offices, and can prove that their IP address is quite different. It is because of this defamation of character (posters claiming to be himself and other members of the GZ forums), rather than the original blog, which led to Bryn asking that the whole thing be shut down and removed. And it is because this request has been denied, and the writer of the blog persists in claiming that it was Bryn and fellow staffers who wrote those antagonistic "flames", that he is seeking legal advice.
Without wishing to sound like I'm teaching anyone here to suck eggs, isn't it worth checking out both sides of a story - or trying to obtain as many facts as possible - before reporting it as news? It's somethng I felt I had to do before writing this comment: the last thing I wanted to do was leap to Bryn's defence if he HAD done something I would consider in bad form.
Anyway, that's me done. Just felt I needed to redress the balance here and clarify a few points.
Be happy
Jonthecelt
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Being threatened with a suit is a very NOT-fun experience.
I don't know if they'll carry it out.
I'm trying to find anything I can about the outcome of these types of suits if they ever reach court.
I've come across 4 so far which were all settled out of court.
Does anyone know what happened with this one??
ps blog is welbeckwealth.wordpress.com
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