:: Nathan Stratton writes ::
I believe you are talking about Libel, and if I recall, that requires the following tests be met:
1. Malice of intent 2. Knowledgeable untruth
If either is missing, I believe libel cannot be prosecuted.
Yep, that was what NetRail was missing with me. It is very hard to shut someone up who is telling the truth. Exodus should get together with NetRail, at least their legal people sound like a match.
No. IANAL, but I did a fair amount of research on this when the director of computing services at the University I attended claimed I had actionably libeled one of his admins. (He was wrong.) (Don't ask.) The person who is allegedly the victim of libel never has to prove that the allegedly libelous statement is false to prevail. (Otherwise, it would be easy to avoid libel. I could, for example, accuse anyone I wanted of, say, being a child molestor. How would they prove that they never molested any child?) In many cases, truth is an absolute defense. That is, in many cases, if I say something about you, and you sue me for libel, and I prove it's true, then you lose. That's a fundamental difference, because it means that in cases where there is no proof as to truth or falsity, it can still be actionable libel. Malice of intent is also not generally required. For a public figure (that is, a case when the alleged victim is a public figure within the forum where the libel allegedly occurred), the plaintiff must prove that the statement was defamatory (this is independant of truth or falsity), and that it was made with a reckless disregard for the truth. For a non-public figure, the standards for much more complicated, and, in some such cases, a completely true statement can be actionally libelous. Public figure is a local matter, though. If I make statements about, say, Nathan Stratton (since I'm following up to his message) on the evening news on TV, the standard is probably going to be the non-public-figure standard. But if I make those statements on this list, where Nathan is relatively well known, it's going to be the public figure standard. Anyway, I'll shut-up since you can't configure your routers with this. My point is this: Libel/Slander law is complicated and non-obvious. Don't go libel someone based on advice from NANOG. - Brett (brettf@netcom.com) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ... Coming soon to a | Brett Frankenberger .sig near you ... a Humorous Quote ... | brettf@netcom.com