November 21, 2009

Recent Threats Added to the CMLP Database

NOTE: The information and commentary contained in this database entry are based on court filings and other informational sources that may contain unproven allegations made by the parties. The truthfulness and accuracy of such information is likely to be in dispute.

Connecticut v. Turner

Date: 06/11/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Criminal Charge	Location: Connecticut	Publication: Blog

In June 2009, state authorities in Connecticut charged right-wing New Jersey blogger and Internet radio host Hal Turner with inciting injury to person or property, a class C felony. According to press accounts, Turner urged readers to "take...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/21/2009 - 6:37pm - 0 comments

Przydzial v. Alkhateeb

Date: 08/01/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: Material Removed
Type: Correspondence	Location: California	Publication: Website

In August 2009, photo-sharing site Flickr removed an image from Firas Alkhateeb's photostream in response to a DMCA takedown notice. The image was a photograph of President Barack Obama from the cover of Time Magazine modified to look like...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/18/2009 - 2:09pm - 0 comments

Sarah Palin v. "Gryphen"

Date: 08/01/2009	Status:	Disposition: n/a
Type: Correspondence	Location: Alaska	Publication: Blog

On August 1, 2009, Sarah Palin's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to Alaskan blogger "Gryphen" over a post published earlier that day on Gryphen's blog ImmoralMinority. The cease and deist letter takes issue with a number...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 10/02/2009 - 12:10pm - 0 comments

Admission Consultants, Inc. v. Google

Date: 11/13/2007	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Subpoena Quashed
Type: Subpoena	Location: New York	Publication: Forum

Admission Consultants, Inc. filed a motion for pre-action discovery in New York court, asking Google for identifying information relating to two email addresses tied to anonymous posts to a forum about Business Schools on BusinessWeek.com. The objected-to comments criticized...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/16/2009 - 8:25pm - 0 comments

Chang v. Greenwald

Date: 07/17/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Subpoena	Location: California	Publication: Blog

On September 9, 2009, Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled (scroll to Item 7) on blogger David Greenwald's motion to quash a subpoena seeking the identity of commenters to his blog, the People's Vanguard...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/16/2009 - 5:57pm - 0 comments

Ottinger v. Tiekert

Date: 09/04/2008	Status: Pending	Disposition: Dismissed (total)
Type: Lawsuit	Location: New York	Publication: Forum

Former House Representative Richard Ottinger and his wife, June Ottinger, filed a John Doe lawsuit in New York state court over anonymous comments posted on a forum on LoHud.com. In a special proceeding for pre-action discovery, the court...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/14/2009 - 11:17am - 0 comments

Kinay v. TCI Journal

Date: 08/19/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Lawsuit	Location: California	Publication: Website

A resort developer filed a John Doe lawsuit in California state court against the anonymous operators of TCI Journal, an online newspaper that reports on government corruption in the Turks & Caicos Islands. According to press ...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/09/2009 - 10:01am - 0 comments

Sturm v. eBay

Date: 02/14/2006	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Dismissed (total); Material Removed
Type: Lawsuit	Location: California	Publication: Website

Kiel J. Sturm sued eBay, Inc. for defamation after it refused to remove a comment critical of him left by a buyer, even after he obtained a court order ruling that the comment was defamatory. According to articles in the San...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/09/2009 - 8:09am - 0 comments

Department of Homeland Security v Does

Date: 07/12/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: ; Material Removed
Type: Disciplinary Action	Location: New York	Publication: Website

According to the Wayne County Star, the Department of Homeland Security is investigating racially insensitive comments posted to an article on the Wayne County Star’s website about a July 12 incident in which Border Patrol officials...

Legal Threat - 09/09/2009 - 7:56am - 0 comments

United States v. Does

Date: 06/02/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: Subpoena Enforced
Type: Subpoena	Location: Nevada	Publication: Website

After anonymous users posted allegedly threatening comments to a Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVRJ) article about an ongoing federal criminal trial (the "Kahre case"), the US Attorney in that case issued a grand jury subpoena seeking information about all public commenters...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/09/2009 - 7:23am - 0 comments

Cash4Gold v. Liberis

Date: 03/12/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Lawsuit	Location: Florida	Publication: Website

In March 2009, Cash4Gold sued Michele Liberis, a former employee, for defamation based on a post Liberis submitted to the consumer watchdog website Complaints Board. As described in Cash4Gold's complaint, the posting contained numerous allegations of unsavory business...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/15/2009 - 6:38pm - 0 comments

Palin v. Latif

Date: 05/05/2009	Status:	Disposition: Material Removed
Type: Correspondence	Location: Texas	Publication: Website

Sarah Palin, then Governor of Alaska, sent a cease and desist letter to Shoe Latif, a Houston-based DJ, who redirected traffic from her website crackho.com to Palin's official website. The cease and desist letter claimed that...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/02/2009 - 12:00pm - 0 comments

Metropolitan Transportation Authority v. Schoenfeld

Date: 08/01/2009	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Settled (total)
Type: Correspondence	Location: Connecticut	Publication: Website

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the Metronorth commuter rail services to New York City's northern suburbs, contacted Chris Schoenfeld demanding licensing payments for use of its schedules on his website, www.stationstops.com, and in his StationStops iPhone application, which both feature departure...

Legal Threat - Eric P. Robinson - 09/28/2009 - 6:48am - 0 comments

Rosenberg v. Spicy Bear Media

Date: 05/15/2009	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Material Removed; Settled (total)
Type: Lawsuit	Location: Virginia	Publication: Blog

Rosenberg, a professional photographer, sued the operator of a Charlottesville, VA community blog (now defunct) for copyright infringement, claiming it failed to remove images of his photograph that were posted (twice) to its site by unknown...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 10/02/2009 - 3:57pm - 0 comments

California Bar v. Wilson

Date: 01/23/2009	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Material Removed
Type: Disciplinary Action	Location: California	Publication: Blog

The California Bar suspended Frank Russell Wilson for failing to disclose he that he was an attorney and blogging about a trial while serving as a juror. Wilson served a juror during the trial of a man charged with five counts...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/04/2009 - 7:41am - 0 comments

Frontera v. Embden

Date: 12/15/2003	Status: Concluded	Disposition: Settled (total)
Type: Lawsuit	Location: New York	Publication: Forum

Details on this lawsuit are sparse, but it seems that a group of politically active people in Newburgh, N.Y. sued the creator and webmaster of the former forum section of the city's former official website, http://www.newburgh-ny.com (now redesigned and...

Legal Threat - Eric P. Robinson - 08/28/2009 - 4:07pm - 0 comments

Video Professor v. Informercial Consumer Awareness

Date: 05/03/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: Settled (partial)
Type: Lawsuit	Location: Colorado	Publication: Website

Video Professor, a computer instruction software company, filed a lawsuit against the owners of Infomercialscams.com, a website which hosts anonymous reviews of infomercial products, and several related individuals asserting claims that the owners of Infomercialscams.com used the threat of negative consumer ratings to extort...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 08/28/2009 - 9:57am - 0 comments

Devenyns v. Albero

Date: 07/24/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Lawsuit	Location: Maryland	Publication: Blog

A Maryland prison director filed a defamation lawsuit against Maryland political blogger Joseph Albero for allowing an allegedly defamatory user comment to appear on his website. Douglas Devenyns claims an anonymous commenter on Albero's Salisbury News blog falsely stated he was a...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 09/11/2009 - 2:07pm - 0 comments

United States v. White

Date: 10/21/2008	Status: Pending	Disposition: Dismissed (total)
Type: Criminal Charge	Location: Illinois	Publication: Website

The United States indicted William White, webmaster of the white-supremacy website Overthrow.com, alleging that he solicited others to harm "Juror A," the foreperson of the jury that convicted Matt Hale, another white supremacist, of soliciting the murder of...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 08/25/2009 - 12:54pm - 0 comments

Doe v. Dirty World Entertainment

Date: 05/06/2009	Status: Pending	Disposition: n/a
Type: Lawsuit	Location: Texas	Publication: Website

An anonymous Texas woman has filed suit in state court against the operator of The Dirty, self-described as the "first and most famous reality gossip blog," for allegedly lending credence to a third-party comment on the site that showed her...

Legal Threat - CMLP Staff - 08/25/2009 - 12:47pm - 0 comments

Copyright 2007-09 Citizen Media Law Project and respective authors. Except where otherwise noted,
content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License: Details.
Use of this site is pursuant to our Terms of Use and Privacy Notice.

Recent Threats Added to the CMLP Database

Connecticut v. Turner

Przydzial v. Alkhateeb

Sarah Palin v. "Gryphen"

Admission Consultants, Inc. v. Google

Chang v. Greenwald

Ottinger v. Tiekert

Kinay v. TCI Journal

Sturm v. eBay

Department of Homeland Security v Does

United States v. Does

Cash4Gold v. Liberis

Palin v. Latif

Metropolitan Transportation Authority v. Schoenfeld

Rosenberg v. Spicy Bear Media

California Bar v. Wilson

Frontera v. Embden

Video Professor v. Informercial Consumer Awareness

Devenyns v. Albero

United States v. White

Doe v. Dirty World Entertainment

Database Resources

Recent Lawsuit Threats

Recent Subpeona Threats

Recent Letter/Email Threats

Recently Updated Threat Entries

Navigation

Recent Threats Added to the CMLP Database

Database Resources

Citizen Media Law Briefs

Recent Lawsuit Threats

Recent Subpeona Threats

Recent Letter/Email Threats

Recently Updated Threat Entries

Navigation