VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 16:32:23 06/20/02 Thu
Author: Dara S.
Subject: Re: ::jumps in with some further legal information!!::
In reply to: angela 's message, "::jumps in with an Intentional Tort!!::" on 21:40:43 06/19/02 Wed

Sorry, I'm a bystander, too, but I can't let this slide. Disclaimer: what I say here applies only to the U.S., and I'm talking about the law as it applies to celebrities. There are different standards for private citizens.

>Technically, an author of RPF can be sued for posting
>a story. There is an intentional tort referred to as
>Publication of Facts Placing Plaintiff in a False
>Light, and it's a sort of branch of Invasion of
>Privacy. For a Plaintiff to win such an action, they
>must prove that: 1) Defendant's conduct is
>objecitonable to a reasonable person standard;

"Reasonable person standard" is a fairly fluid concept, if I'm not mistaken. A vanilla slash story might be horrifically offensive to someone from the Bible Belt, but not so much to someone from San Francisco. In this day and age, it's by no means a given conclusion that everybody on the planet finds gay content offensive. If you're talking about the "reasonable publisher standard" recognized in some states, professional publications have published RPS/RPHet/RPF without consequences, so it isn't unheard of.

>2) A
>false impression of the Plaintiff was presented; 3)
>Statements were made knowing that it was false, or
>with a reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity;
>and,

But these are both open to debate. If a story is clearly disclaimered "This is fiction!" has a false impression really been presented? Likewise, if the author *has* taken care to ensure that readers don't take it as a statement of fact (i.e. by using said disclaimer), they haven't exactly shown reckless disregard, have they?

>4) Wide disemination (publication) was made of
>the false impression.

Define "wide dissemination". Does a website with less than 10,000 readers count? Not in at least one case. An author of hockey player slash of my acquaintance was narc'ed on to a players' association, and their response was that her site was so low-traffic, it wasn't even worth bothering with. The publicity from a libel suit would, in most cases, do more to put the RPS in the public eye than the original website did.

>If that doesn't work, there is always Intentional
>Infliction of Emotional Distress.

Not for celebrities in the U.S., there isn't. See Falwell v. Hustler. No less than the Supreme Court ruled that celebrities don't have the same right to be free of emotional distress as private citizens do. (The libel complaint was thrown out by the original jury, as they concluded that the "Falwell's [literally] a motherf**ker" ad parody couldn't reasonably be understood to describe actual facts.)

>Plus, both
>actions can give you punitive damages!

So can copyright infringement, unless I'm mistaken.

I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere: if you're *that* worried about legal action, stick to original characters.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.