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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 513829, member: 4626&quot;]I&#039;m sure quite a few of you have heard of SomethingAwful.com ... to me one of the most entertaining aspects of the site is where they publicly post lawsuit threats, and their responses to them.&nbsp; One of the site owners is a lawyer (or at least claims to be, not sure of his actual credentials) and they usually respond in a way that makes it clear they don&#039;t take the threats seriously because the law is so obviously on their side that any actual lawsuit would just get laughed out of court and no lawyer would take their case unless they were paid up front, which few people threatening lawsuits could afford anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p>Quite often they&#039;ll post negative reviews of movies, video games, web sites, message boards etc. or just post something that someone decides offends them, and people will threaten to sue.&nbsp; They don&#039;t take the threats at all seriously because opinions can never be considered libelous, because they are only opinions, which are 1st amendment-protected free speech.&nbsp; In order to be considered libel, they have to prove they knowingly stated something that is <i>factually</i> untrue with the effect and intent of harming the complaintant&#039;s reputation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even if you make a factual claim that harms the complaintant&#039;s reputation, truth is an absolute defense.&nbsp; In other words, you say someone ripped you off, and can prove they did, they can&#039;t successfully sue for libel.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, they can always try.&nbsp; But no sane and competent lawyer would take their case, and any competent judge would laugh them out of court if they actually went through it.&nbsp; Such cases are extremely rare.</p><p><br /></p><p>They&#039;d be even rarer if the US passed a &quot;loser pays&quot; law (a plaintiff that sues someone has to pay the defendent&#039;s legal fees if they lose) that almost every other country in the world has but us.&nbsp; But of course the legal industry always lobbys against attempts to pass such a thing, wonder why...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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